Page 101 of Sweet Silver Bells

The tree closed around them like the world was exhaling. Above them, the wind stirred through the branches, carrying the distant echo of ballroom music and the faint, dreamlike call of sirens.

“I’ll be haunting you for the rest of eternity,” Hunter promised.

“The tree siren and her phantom,” Olivia mused.

“That has a certain ring.”

“Good,” Olivia said. “Because you’d better.’

Olivia started their forever with a song, her song.

Our song.

"Hark how the bells

Sweet silver bells

All seem to say

Throw cares away

Christmas is here, bringing good cheer."

“Goodbye,” Hunter said out loud, as he shut out the memories of the world that had hurt him and buried himself in her arms for eternity.

He could hearthe children play as the years passed, as the school visited the grounds for field trips. Rumors of the spirits that lived in the forest were alive and well, helped by Sadie spreading stories that someone she knew had been murdered, and the witch had run into the night, the forest keeping her still, wrapped in evergreen and snowfall, tucked beneath the boughs like ornaments long forgotten. And every Christmas Eve, thewind carried music through the trees when the snow fell just right.

A waltz.

A laugh.

A kiss.

A song.

And the world, if only for a breath, remembered what it meant to be truly, hopelessly, joyfully in love. Hunter stayed forever wrapped in her safety, in her comfort—singing the songs for the trees, for the moon, for Olivia.