There Arose Such A Clatter: Tales From The Naughty List by C.M. Nascosta

Author:C.M. Nascosta [Nascosta, C.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Meduas Editoriale
Published: 2021-12-14T18:30:00+00:00

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Her eyes fluttered open slowly, finding the grey glow of morning bathing the room. Tugging the plush blanket from her sofa around her shoulders, she pressed her face back to the cushion. It had been an odd dream, one that tugged at the corners of her consciousness, but the memory was clouded and smokey and unclear . . .

Smoke!

Nessa jolted beneath the blanket, suddenly aware of how odd it was to be sleeping on the sofa in the first place, realizing she was naked beneath the covers. Sitting up slowly, a sudden stab of pain twinged up her body, and it all came rushing back, every terrible minute. She’d never crossed the apartment so quickly, barely making it to the bathroom in time to retch, her head spinning. It was a dream . . . it had to be a dream. Walking back to the living room on shaking legs, she drifted back to the sofa, picking up her phone from the low table with a shaking hand.

It was shortly before nine a.m. on December twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve . . . again.

The exhalation she let out left her sagging back on the cushions, relief flooding through her until she thought she might sob from the pressure of it. It had been a dream, just a dream! She’d text her mother, she thought, sitting up quickly, would ask her what she could bring over for dinner tonight . . . after she stopped at the ATM to get the money she owed her sister, would stop somewhere and by her a generous spa gift card as an apology for missing her party. After she dropped the toys off at the charity intake, she might pick up some cookie trays for her neighbors . . . It had been a dream. She felt like Ebenezer Scrooge, waking on Christmas Day with a fresh start yawning before her. She laughed then, the sound leaving her throat as a hiccup of tears, imagining herself throwing open the sash of her window to exclaim down to passersby, asking what day it was. It had been a dream, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make some changes.

Nessa pushed herself to her feet, eager to get started, to begin righting the wrongs she’d committed against the people she loved. And when the office reopens after the holidays, you’re putting in your notice. It was then that she saw it. At the end of the table rested a small pile of soot, incongruous considering she didn’t have a fireplace. A ripple went through her as she remembered, falling back on the sofa. She remembered all of it, remembered the smell of soot and ash, remembered the creature who knocked on her door. A pile of soot, all that was left of the person she’d been.

From outside, the church bells up the street chimed the hour, oddly toneless and dull, sending a curious thud echoing through her as the snow softly fell.

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