Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

Snow began to fall.

The soft kind—lazy flakes drifting past the window in slow spirals, settling on the porch rail like they were testing the temperature before committing. Inside, the living room was a small explosion of wrapping paper, gift bags, cardboard tubes, and the unmistakable evergreen smell of the tree that was just slightly too big for the room.

“Hold right there, sweetheart,” she said, guiding her daughter’s tiny index finger to the center of the box. “No—right there. That’s perfect. Don’t move.”

The little girl, all bright eyes and crooked pigtails, leaned forward earnestly, pressing her finger down as if the fate of the entire holiday season depended on it. “Is it tight enough?”

“It will be,” the mother murmured, looping the ribbon around the box and pulling the ends snug. She tied the knot fast and neat, hands working automatically—muscle memory from hundreds of December nights like this one.

She reached for the scissors and slid the blade along the ribbon’s edge, pulling gently until the tail sprang into a perfect curl. Her daughter gasped like it was magic.

“How did you do that?”

“Practice,” she said. “And a little bit of luck.”

But really, it wasn’t either.
It was imitation.

Her mother’s voice rose up in her mind, soft and warm and carrying the cinnamon scent of the kitchen from decades ago: Put your finger right there, sweetie. She could still feel her own small hand, steadying the ribbon the same way her daughter was doing now. She hadn’t thought about that moment in years—not really—but suddenly it was as clear as the afternoon it happened.

She smiled without meaning to.

“Are you thinking about Grandma?” her daughter asked.

She blinked. “How did you know?”

“You got the remembering face.”

“Well,” she said, smoothing the curl of ribbon, “Grandma used to teach me how to wrap presents just like this. She let me hold the ribbon down so she could tie the knots. And she always made the curls look perfect.”

Her daughter traced the ribbon with one fingertip. “Is this how she did it?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Exactly like this.”

They worked through the rest of the gifts together—some lumpy, some crooked, some surprisingly tidy, all of them full of the kind of love that doesn’t need to be told what to do. The snow thickened outside, turning the streetlights hazy and soft, making the whole world look quieter than it really was.

By the time they finished, the little girl was yawning hard enough to squeak.

“Okay, ribbonsmith,” the mother said. “Bedtime.”

“Can I wear the sparkly ones tomorrow?” the girl asked, pointing to the leftover curls—pink, gold, silver, and one bright green.

“We’ll see.”

But the next morning, when the pigtails were brushed and newly elastic’d and bouncing with that particular energy only small children have on Christmas, she tied one silver curl around the left elastic and one green curl around the right.

Her daughter looked up at her reflection, surprised delight blooming across her face. “I look like a present!”

The thought rose instantly, fierce and tender: You are my present.

“You look perfect,” she said instead.

She opened the curtains a little wider, letting the pale morning light in.
The house felt different somehow.
Familiar.
New again.
Both things at once.

In the quiet between footsteps and excitement, she felt something soften, something settle.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

“The wind changes,” she said, “just before something big happens. Haven’t you noticed?”

He looked up from the living room, already half smiling.
“Oh no. Not the Weather Witch routine again. Last time you said that, the sump pump exploded.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” she replied, her tone making it clear she’d been waiting years for him to bring it up again. “And you have noticed. Every big storm we’ve ever had starts with this.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. Because she was right — she always felt these things a moment before they happened. Thirty winters together had taught him that much.

He stood, listening with her.
The pressure in the air shifted.
A faint metallic tremor ran through the holiday lights on their balcony.
The house seemed to inhale.

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “Okay. I feel it.”

The transformer outside gave a low, uneasy hum, faltering just long enough to make her pause with the mixing bowl in her hands. Then the lights blinked once — sharp, warning — and everything went dark.

No gentle dimming, no slow fade.
Just out.

From the living room he called, “Well, Merry Christmas to us.”

She laughed softly. “We didn’t forget the bill, did we?”

It was an old joke, one carried forward from a time in their lives when forgetting the bill was a genuine possibility. Back then, humor had been their only reliable light source. Using it now softened the edge of the sudden dark.

“We paid it,” he said, already feeling his way toward her. “This one’s the grid.”

They met in the hallway as they always did during storms — hands first, then foreheads touching, a simple ritual formed in the years when they’d had so little and leaned so much on each other. After three decades, they could have found each other blindfolded on another planet.

“Should I check the breakers?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Get the lantern.”

He hesitated.

Not because he didn’t know where it was, but because the lantern lived in the box they rarely touched — the one from a winter they didn’t talk about often, when outages weren’t inconveniences but everyday realities, and that small metal lantern had been the only light they could count on. Touching it meant touching all of that again.

“The one from the old place?” he asked quietly.

She nodded, though he couldn’t see it.

He went to the bedroom closet — top shelf, box marked MISC. though they both knew exactly what was in it — while she moved toward the front window. Outside, their suburban cul-de-sac was dark and still. A few neighbors stepped onto porches with tea candles or phone flashlights, their voices drifting low, softened by cold air.

He returned carrying the lantern gently in both hands. Tin sides. Tiny punched stars. The fabric-wrapped handle from a winter they survived together, even when they weren’t entirely sure how.

“Oh,” she murmured. “I really thought we’d lost it.”

“You would’ve noticed,” he said, though his voice held the same soft relief.

They lit it together. The wick caught with a small, golden bloom, casting star-shaped shadows across the bookshelves, the framed photographs, the holiday cards lined along the mantel. The lantern glowed exactly as it always had — modest, steady, familiar.

“It still works,” he said.

“It always did.”

They settled onto the couch, shoulders touching, the lantern resting on the coffee table between them. Its warmth didn’t heat the room so much as ease it — smoothing the edges of memory until Then and Now sat comfortably beside each other.

For a while, they simply breathed in the quiet, letting the dark be gentle instead of heavy.

Eventually she stood and looked out the window.
The street was dark. Still. Waiting.

Snow began to fall.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

She hums a song as ancient as dust.

It rolls low in her chest, a tune older than the Pole itself, older than winter, older than the first fires lit by human hands. The sound vibrates through the workshop floorboards, down through the packed ice, deeper still through stone and mantle and molten dark—until the earth answers back with a faint thrum of its own.

The elves pause. One by one.

They always do.

They freeze like candle flames caught mid-flicker, pointed ears tilting toward the source of the song. Their eyes—silver, green, gold—grow brighter. Not warm, not friendly. Bright like gemstones turning toward the hammer.

Mrs. Claus keeps humming. She must.

Tonight is the Night of Deepest Descent, when the elves renew their magic. A cheerful phrase on the calendar for those above ground; a necessary dread for those who know the truth.

Her husband—“Santa” to the winking masses—sits in his study polishing spectacles, pretending not to hear. He hates this part. Always has. Kindness comes naturally to him. Old power does not.

But she was born to it.

The North Pole chose her long before it chose him.

The elves begin to sway, tiny hands lifting, palms down, as if feeling for something rising. Their shadows stretch unnaturally long across the walls, thin and whip-like, curling like smoke even though there is no fire.

Then comes the cracking sound.

Like ice under too much weight.
Like the world taking a breath.

A seam forms along the center of the floor—hairline, glowing faintly red. Not the red of holly berries or candy stripes. The red of magma. The red of origin.

One of the elves—Perrin, the smallest—steps forward and touches the seam with reverence. His fingers spark blue. The magic rushes up through him, a surge of ancient power that makes his eyes roll back white for a heartbeat.

Then he exhales softly, and the seam closes.

The workshop exhales too—wood settling, machinery sighing, the air losing its electric bite.

Mrs. Claus finally lets the last note fade.

Perrin looks up at her, eyes their normal crystalline green again. “It is done,” he says, voice thin but steady. “We will be strong for another turning.”

He returns to the others, and they slip back to their tasks as naturally as snowflakes settling into a drift. Their humming resumes—light, cheerful, perfectly harmless.

To most ears.

She walks to the window. Beyond it, the eternal polar night stretches wide and blue, the aurora shimmering overhead like a curtain of spirits.

Her husband says her name softly, once, then again.
She doesn’t turn.

The floor beneath her feet still holds a faint warmth, as if the earth hasn’t finished exhaling. Outside, the aurora shifts color, and for an instant she thinks she sees movement under the ice—nothing defined, just a ripple, the world remembering something older than winter.

The room cools.
The shadows lengthen.
Somewhere in the deep, a single pulse answers itself.

She closes her eyes, listening.

The wind changes.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

She smiles. “They’ll find their way,” she says softly.

The younglings cluster close to her, their eyes wide as moons, their soft bodies still faintly translucent with newness. They haven’t learned yet to dim their glow, so the cavern sparkles — hundreds of tiny lights flickering against the stone, reflections moving like fireflies through water.

Outside, the desert wind moans across the dunes, carrying the scent of iron and ozone. The sky beyond the cave mouth is purple-black, strewn with so many stars it almost hurts to look. The elder has seen a thousand nights like this, and yet each one still feels like a beginning.

“Is it far?” one of them asks. Its voice is high, tremulous, hopeful.

“Far enough,” she says. “But not beyond reach.”

They murmur among themselves — a soft chime of uncertainty.

She chuckles. “You think distance is the hardest part. It isn’t. The hardest part is not knowing which way is yours to take.”

Their light flickers lower at that, and she regrets the shadow her honesty casts. “But you’ll learn,” she adds, gentler now. “The stars mark paths, not destinies. The wind remembers the shape of every traveler. You’ll listen, and you’ll know.”

One of the older ones — older by perhaps a few rotations — steps forward. “Will you come with us?”

“I will watch,” she answers. “But this is your journey. You’ll go farther without me.”

They shift uneasily. They’re not ready to leave the warmth of the nest, not ready to trade comfort for discovery. She remembers that feeling — the ache of wanting safety and freedom at once.

“Do you know why we’re called the Wandering Kind?” she asks.

A dozen small heads tilt. “Because we wander?”

“Because we seek,” she corrects softly. “And seeking means you can never stand still for long.”

She reaches into the pouch slung across her shoulder and pulls out a handful of dust — fine, shimmering particles that glow faintly blue. With a whisper, she scatters them into the air. The motes drift toward the cave’s mouth and catch the faint starlight, revealing faint trails across the sky — glowing threads stretching outward, weaving and crossing and looping back in on themselves.

“These are the paths of those who came before,” she says. “Every one of them once stood where you do now, wondering if they could survive the first night alone.”

“Did they?” another asks.

She smiles again, soft and knowing. “You wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t.”

Silence settles over them — a listening silence, deep and reverent. Outside, the wind shifts, and the glowing dust begins to fade. The younglings turn their faces toward the open sky.

“Go on,” she says. “Before dawn finds you waiting.”

One by one, they step into the starlit desert. Their glow grows brighter as they move away, pale lights bobbing like will-o’-wisps across the dunes. She watches until they’re only a constellation of tiny sparks at the edge of sight.

When the last one pauses to look back, she lifts a hand and waves. The youngling mimics the gesture, then turns and continues after the others.

The elder lingers a moment longer in the cave’s mouth, feeling the wind brush her face like a benediction. Then she sits, pulls her cloak around her, and looks up. The stars shimmer — the old paths intertwining with the new — and she hums a song as ancient as dust.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

They rise into the cold blue of space, still hand in hand, still laughing.

Far below, the ocean ripples with light — thousands of bioluminescent shapes spiraling up from the deep to greet their visitors. The shuttle hovers over the water, its hull still glowing from the long descent through the planet’s upper winds, and for a moment the aliens inside forget to breathe.

“They’re beautiful,” murmurs the smaller one, his voice like wind through reeds.

“Cousins always are,” replies the elder, flexing her delicate, translucent limbs. “Eight arms, three hearts, and the wisdom to remain in the sea. We share an ancestor older than tides; they simply remembered their path better than we did.”

They glide down in a capsule no larger than a tide pool, the outer plating cooling with a soft hiss as the ocean rises to cradle them. In seconds, the hull becomes a mirror — water pressing close, refracting starlight into a scatter of trembling sparks.

A chorus of color greets them, shifting through violet, coral, gold, and jade. The octopuses sing in light, not sound, their chromatophores pulsing intricate patterns of greeting. The visitors answer with a glow of their own — spirals and waves that mean kin, memory, season-turning.

For the first time since leaving their ancestral waters, the ache of distance eases.

Their hosts guide them toward the reef — not coral, but a living city of glasslike spirals and kelp-towers grown into lace. The octopuses bear gifts: shells filled with glowing plankton, strands of kelp threaded with luminous stones, and sea-fire that burns without heat or harm.

The elder bows low, her eyes like twin suns behind clear lids.
“We bring you warmth,” she says, “for the turning of the light.”

The octopuses reply in shimmer and ripple: We bring you the sea.

A circle forms — water, radiance, motion. The visitors ignite their sea-fire; the octopuses answer with a burst of phosphorescence so bright it paints the underside of the waves in molten gold. For a heartbeat, the ocean appears to hold a sunrise.

The younger alien laughs. “It’s not so different from burning embers,” he says.

“Everywhere there’s life, there’s fire,” the elder answers. “Some flames simply choose different colors.”

The circle widens, ripples spreading, and the two species drift into a shared rhythm — some with hands, some with arms, all with joy. In their mingled glow, something ancient rises, older than language or gravity: the understanding that warmth is not bound to flame, and family not bound to form.

Above them, the stars flicker — responding, perhaps, or merely echoing the radiance beneath them.

The elder reaches toward the surface. Water beads cling to her fingertips, catching the light as they lift — tiny sparks suspended for an instant before falling back, carrying the shimmer of this night into the wide, waiting dark.

She smiles. “They’ll find their way,” she says softly.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

When he reaches for her hand, she doesn’t let go.

The air around them is thin and electric, crackling with a thousand unseen particles that shimmer like the inside of a snowflake. The comet’s tail stretches behind them — a luminous ribbon of ice and dust unfurling through the velvet dark. Stars slide past in perfect, ancient silence, as if the universe itself is leaning in to watch.

She’s wrapped in a silver parka and too many scarves, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with the kind of wonder only the very young ever let themselves feel.

“Grandfather,” she breathes, “we’re really doing it!”

Old Man Winter grins, his beard curling like storm clouds, his eyes the pale, dangerous blue of a frozen sea. His voice rumbles deep in his chest, warm despite the cold he carries within him.

“Of course we are,” he says. “You think I spin tales just to pass the time? Every legend needs its first telling — and tonight, this one belongs to you.”

He clicks his tongue, and the wind obeys. The comet dips lower, sweeping around a pale, glittering moon. Frost trails behind them in twisting shapes — antlers, wings, bursts of crystalline laughter.

She laughs too, the sound human and joyous against the infinite dark.
“It’s beautiful.”

“Beauty,” he murmurs, “is the one thing I never tire of making.”

They skim through the solar veil, the comet’s light scattering like spilled diamonds. The temperature drops, but she doesn’t feel cold; her grandfather’s magic wraps her in an invisible warmth, a flickering halo that turns her breath into tiny auroras.

He guides the comet’s path with one hand, the other still clasping hers.
“You know why we fly on the Solstice?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s the longest night,” he says. “Not for sorrow — for balance. The dark gives the light a place to return to. Winter holds the world still, just long enough for hope to gather its breath.”

Below them, Earth drifts in slow rotation — half-shadow, half-glow. The poles shine white, and delicate threads of light mark the places where humans huddle together, claiming warmth against the cold.

“Are they celebrating tonight?” she asks.

“Most of them,” he answers. “They’ve forgotten my old names, but not the feeling I bring. Warmth means more when the cold is close. Light means more when the night runs deep. That’s what this season remembers — not a single story, but the turning of the world toward brightness again.”

The comet arcs downward, brushing the upper atmosphere. Frost scatters across the sky like sequins thrown from a dancer’s hand. Somewhere below, a child looks up and makes a wish. Somewhere else, an old woman smiles, remembering winters long past.

Her grandfather loosens his grip and nods forward.
“Your turn.”

“Mine?” Her voice trembles between awe and eagerness.

“Every Frostkeeper marks a path once,” he says. “Choose where our light will fall.”

She closes her eyes and lifts her free hand. Gravity hums. Magic answers. The comet sweeps lower, scattering crystal dust over northern forests, frozen rivers, and rooftops crowned with thin halos of light.

When she opens her eyes, the world below gleams faintly — a silver web of frost that will vanish by morning, leaving only the softest glint on glass.

“That’s it,” he says softly. “You’ve found your rhythm.”

She smiles. “Can we do it again next year?”

He chuckles, the sound rolling like distant thunder.
“Next year, you’ll lead.”

They rise into the cold blue of space, still hand in hand, still laughing.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

She lets the silence fill her, vast and bright as home.

It’s the kind of quiet that only happens after heavy snowfall — thick, forgiving, a hush that smooths the sharp edges of everything. The colony sleeps beneath a quilt of white, soft light bleeding from the biothermal streetlamps. Above the dome, the auroras twist in ribbons of green and rose, reflected in the ice like the planet itself is dreaming.

She stands outside the comms station, chin tilted back, breath crystallizing in the air. Her boots leave careful tracks on the compacted path. The cold doesn’t bother her much anymore; after six years on Isolde Prime, her body has learned to move with the chill instead of against it. Still, she misses the sound of wind through trees — there are no trees here, only metal towers and frost.

The door slides open behind her. “You’re out here again.”

She doesn’t turn immediately. “You say that like I’m supposed to be somewhere else.”

He steps beside her, close enough that she can feel the faint warmth radiating from his coat. Dr. Elias Hart, exobiologist, reluctant optimist, hopeless romantic. His parka hood is lined with faux fur gone a little ragged at the edges, and his cheeks are red from the cold.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he says.

“So are you.”

“I was.” He smiles, slow and tired. “Then I dreamed about the first storm, and figured you’d be out here watching this one.”

She glances sideways. “You make that sound like a bad habit.”

“Depends on the company.”

The lights above them pulse, soft as breathing. She remembers that first storm — the fear of the power failing, the scramble to secure the greenhouse domes, the way they’d worked side by side in the cold until dawn. That was when it began, really: not the flirtation or the laughter, but the quiet respect that came from surviving something together.

“Do you think we’ll ever get used to it?” she asks. “The cold, the dark, the way it always feels like we’re living inside a snow globe?”

He follows her gaze toward the horizon, where the sun won’t rise for another twenty days. “Maybe that’s not the point,” he says. “Maybe we’re not supposed to get used to it. Maybe we’re supposed to keep being amazed.”

She snorts, but softly. “That’s the kind of thing you say before you go back to Earth and write a book.”

“I’m not going back.”

She turns toward him, really looks at him this time — the steady eyes, the unshaven jaw, the kind of man who plants roots even in permafrost.

“Elias—”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small: a clear polymer sphere, snow swirling inside in tiny suspension. “The kids in the fabrication lab made these. Said they’re souvenirs for when we forget what the real thing looks like.”

She takes it, shaking it once. Flakes swirl like tiny ghosts, catching the lamplight. “You kept one?”

“I made one for you.”

Her breath catches — not from the cold this time. “You really are hopeless.”

“Hopelessly yours,” he says, grinning.

The silence between them is thick, but not empty. It’s the kind of silence that holds everything they haven’t said — the hours shared, the meals traded, the quiet in each other’s presence.

She leans in before she can second-guess it. The kiss is brief, but steady. His beard is cold, his lips warm, and the world seems to tilt slightly around them.

When they break apart, the snow begins again — soft flakes drifting down through the artificial atmosphere of the dome.

She tucks the snow globe into her coat pocket. “Merry Christmas, Elias.”

“Merry Christmas, Alina.”

The snow falls thicker now, wrapping the colony in white, and when he reaches for her hand, she doesn’t let go.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

For once, she feels perfectly in time.

The station hums around her — quiet but alive, a cathedral of carbon fiber and light. Out the viewport, Earth drifts beneath her like a blue lantern, its cloud swirls gleaming silver against the dark. The orbit is stable again. The instruments whisper compliance.

For the first time in seventy-three days, she’s not fighting the drift.

She floats closer to the window, gloved hand brushing against the glass as if she could touch the horizon. On the far side of the planet, dawn unspools in a line of molten gold. The sun flares, and the panels outside catch it, flooding the cabin with soft radiance.

It feels like Christmas morning — though by the mission clock, it might not even be December anymore. Up here, dates blur. There’s only light and shadow, work and rest, silence and the steady rhythm of her own pulse.

She checks the comms again. Static. Then, faintly, a voice.

“Jemison, this is Houston. Do you copy?”

Her breath catches. “Copy, Houston,” she replies, the words a little too fast. “Jemison reads you five by five.”

“Good to hear your voice again, Commander.”

It’s a new voice, one she doesn’t recognize — calm, low, threaded with warmth. A voice that sounds like gravity.

“Telemetry shows you’re back in sync,” he continues. “Your orbit stabilized two cycles ago.”

“I know,” she says softly. “I felt it.”

There’s a pause on the line — not static, but surprise. Then a chuckle. “You felt orbital correction?”

“I’ve been up here long enough to tell when the universe exhales.”

She hears him smile through the static. “Roger that.”

They run through diagnostics together, the familiar ritual of systems checks and data verification. His cadence is steady, soothing, a rhythm to anchor herself to. She imagines him on the ground — headset askew, coffee cooling beside his keyboard, eyes turned skyward.

When the checklist is complete, he says, “You’ll have sunrise in about ninety seconds. You should see the aurora from your position.”

“I see it already,” she whispers.

Below her, ribbons of green and violet curl across the poles, shimmering like breath against the night. It’s not the first aurora she’s seen from orbit, but this one feels different — brighter, alive. She thinks of the Christmas lights her father used to hang along the eaves of their house, blinking patterns that never quite synced. He’d laugh every year and say, “Perfection’s overrated, sweetheart. Just make it shine.”

And she had.

Now, decades later, she’s circling the planet he left behind, bathed in the glow of a light show that no human hands arranged.

“Houston,” she says, “if you’re getting video, you’ll want to see this.”

“I am,” he answers. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

She could tell him yes, but it feels too small a word. Instead, she just listens — to the hum of the ship, to his breathing on the line, to the faint crackle of cosmic radiation singing between them.

“I think,” she says slowly, “that for the first time in a long time, I know what it means to be home.”

“Copy that, Commander.” His voice softens. “Merry Christmas, up there.”

Her throat tightens. “Merry Christmas, down there.”

Outside the window, the aurora shimmers brighter, wrapping the curve of the world in living green fire. The station drifts steady through the dark, and she lets the silence fill her, vast and bright as home.

Note: I made a list of prompts, and wrote a bite-sized story for each one. They don’t live in the same universe, but they’re all a little off-kilter from what you might expect from holiday fare. And if you pay attention, you’ll notice that the last line of each story becomes the first line of the next. Also?  You can listen to these stories at my podcast website: BathtubMermaid.com.

Outside, the church bells strike midnight — exactly on time.

Inside the café, the world softens around the edges. The espresso machine has gone quiet, its metal belly releasing one last sigh of steam. She wipes down the counter in slow, practiced circles. When she finishes, she pours herself a small mug from what remains in the pot — lukewarm, but still comforting — and brings it with her as she turns.

He’s still there.

Coat folded over the back of his chair, the sleeves of his blazer worn thin at the elbows, chalk dust or flour or some other pale powder clinging to the cuffs. His notebook lies open beside a half-finished cappuccino, the foam long since collapsed into faint rings. He looks up at the shift of movement — or perhaps at the weight of her gaze — and starts to gather his things in a gentle, apologetic flurry.

“You don’t have to rush,” she says. “I’m closing, but not throwing anyone out.”

He pauses, half-smiling, half-wincing.
“I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“You’re not,” she replies, sipping from her mug. “You’re keeping the place company.”

The remark earns her a small smile — not quite shy, not quite confident, but warmer than the room had been a moment before. She walks to the back table and pulls the chessboard from the small bookshelf beside it.

“Stay,” she says, setting it down. “One game. I’ll even let you go first.”

He hesitates in the doorway between leaving and lingering — then rises, stretches, and joins her.

“I should warn you,” he says as he sits, “I tend to overthink my openings.”

“I work with caffeine for a living,” she replies. “Patience is a professional hazard.”

They begin in a hush broken only by the soft click of pieces meeting the board. She likes the way he studies the positions — eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open, as if listening for the logic rather than calculating it. She suspects he used to play piano, or perhaps still does.

Between moves, conversation emerges naturally: literature, mathematics, the best temperature for steaming milk, the yearly misery of daylight savings. He admits he always means to grade papers earlier, but ends up wandering the neighborhood instead — the mind needing air. She tells him she once majored in theatre before life demanded something steadier.

“Do you miss it?” he asks.

“Performing? Sometimes,” she says. “But a café’s not so different from a stage. There’s an audience. A rhythm. A script you can rewrite on the fly.”

“And what am I?” he asks, head tilted. “The critic?”

She shakes her head. “The recurring character.”

That earns her a fuller smile, bright enough to reveal the faint crease at the corner of his mouth.

When she finally checkmates him, he laughs softly, running a hand through his hair. “I teach logic, and yet…”

“Emotion trumps logic more often than not,” she says, beginning to gather the pieces.

But he reaches out — a light touch, just two fingers resting over her hand — and asks, “Another round?”

Her pulse flickers. “If I say yes, I’ll have to brew another pot.”

“Then yes,” he repeats.

Outside, snow begins to fall: hesitant flakes drifting past the windows, melting as soon as they touch the pavement. Inside, the air smells of cinnamon, espresso, and something newly awake.

Hours slip by unnoticed.
They play until the clock over the door insists it’s past two.

He helps her stack the chairs, fold the cloths, and set the alarm. At the door he lingers, breath blooming white in the cold.

“Same time next week?”

She nods, fingers tucked into her sleeves. “Bring your overthinking.”

He inclines his head, that amused glint returning. “And you bring the patience.”

The door closes behind him with a soft chime. She watches him retreat into the snow, coat collar turned up, shoulders curved like a thoughtful question. After a moment, she locks up, turns off the lights, and stands in the quiet warmth he’s left behind — a small ember glowing gently in the bones of the room.

When she finally steps outside, the bells begin again, slow and solemn. Midnight, or maybe something older.

And for once, she feels perfectly in time.