Christmas has a particular texture.
Not just the lights or the noise, but the quieter things underneath. The pause. The cold air. The sense that the year is folding in on itself. We busy ourselves with preparations, but really, we should use the season to find quiet and bond with loved ones.
It is the season where we celebrate different things. Christmas, Yule, is whatever we want it to be. We have our own reasons, beliefs. We may be celebrating a birth, the light returning, the approaching new year. The season is about the new.
Stories belong to that space.
This year closed an era for me.
A Sky Without Stars marked the end of a trilogy that began years ago. Three books, one long arc, finally complete. Finishing it felt less like celebration and more like release. A permission to move on and explore different ideas.
That is where Moss Garden came from.
It is a small, quiet piece. Observant. Still. A story about place, solitude, and what happens when the world finally stops asking anything of you. Where Sky closes a door, Moss Garden opens another one. Not loudly. Not with intention. Just enough to let something new in.
2026 will be very different from anything that came before. More on that later.
If you are reading over the holidays, I hope you find a book that fits the season. Something unhurried. Something you can hold in your hands. A new truth, or a place or character that will stay with you for years to come.
However you are spending these days, I hope there is room for rest and for stories.
Merry Christmas, and thank you for reading.
Moss Garden is a short story and is available free on Kobo, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Everand, Fable, Smashwords, Thalia and Vivlio.
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