Missing Snow: A Collection of Holiday Stories

By Rebecca M. Douglass

Over more than eight years of blogging, Rebecca M. Douglass has written and shared hundreds of short stories. Each year, some of that flash fiction has included Christmas stories and other midwinter tales. This collection brings together the best of those stories with the heartwarming, “Halitor at Midwinter,” for an hour or so of seasonal reading pleasure! Join Halitor, Xavier Xanthum, the Ninja Librarian, and Millicent, head of the Wizard’s Library, in celebrating the season!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca M. Douglass
• Release date: Dec 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005260750

Rebecca M. Douglass

After a lifetime of reading and a decade of slinging books at the library and herding cats with the PTA, Rebecca began to turn her experiences into books of her own, publishing her first (The Ninja Librarian) in 2012. That failed to quiet the voices in her head, but seemed to entertain a number of readers, so she wrote some more, which generated still more voices. Despite the unlimited distractions provided by raising sons to the point of leaving home, not to mention the mountains that keep calling (very hard to resist the urging of something the size of the Sierra Nevada), she has managed to produce many more books in the years since.For those who enjoy murder and mayhem with a sense of humor, Rebecca’s Pismawallops PTA mysteries provide insights into what PTA moms and island life are really like. If you prefer tall tales and even less of a grip on reality, visit Skunk Corners in The Ninja Librarian and its sequels. And for those who’ve always thought that fantasy was a bit too high-minded, a stumble through rescues and escapes with Halitor the Hero, possibly the most hapless hero to ever run in fear from any and all fair maidens, should set you straight.Through it all, she has continued to pen flash fiction, for a time sharing a new story on her blog nearly every week. Now those stories are getting new life in a series of novella-length ebooks, with an omnibus paperback coming soon.Why does Rebecca write so many different kinds of books (there’s even an alphabet picture book in the mix!)? It might be because she has a rich lifetime of experience that requires expression in many ways, but it’s probably just that she’s easily distracted.

Book preview

Missing Snow

A collection of holiday stories

by

Rebecca M. Douglass

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, events and places portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 Rebecca M. Douglass

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

ISBN-13: 9781005260750

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Halitor at Midwinter was previously published in BookElves Anthology, Vol. 2, Princelings Publications, 2015.

Other stories have been published in some form on the author’s blog, https://www.ninjalibrarian.com, but are no longer available on that site.

Contents

Introduction

Halitor at Midwinter

Xavier Xanthum’s Christmas

Life in Snowglobia

Yuletide in the Wizards’ Library

The Elf in the Closet

The Missing Snow

Christmas in Skunk Corners

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Rebecca M. Douglass

Introduction

Eleven years of blogging. Countless book reviews and essays. And nearly 300 pieces of flash fiction, and that doesn’t count the drabbles of 100 words or less. That’s the legacy of now that you’re published, you need to start a blog.

Over those eleven years, I have written hundreds of thousands of words of fiction that I shared with anyone who cared to read them, then left to languish. This book represents the first of several planned volumes that bring together some of my best (or favorite) shorts, re-edited and polished.

Christmas stories haven’t been a large feature of the blog since the holiday comes only once a year, but research revealed a number of stories of wildly differing genres, several of them humorous, others heart-warming, and at least one decidedly chilling. Two of the stories feature favorite characters from my middle-grade novels, including the Ninja Librarian. Another stars Xavier Xanthum, a useful sort of character for A to Z challenges. The collection is anchored by the longer story of Halitor at Midwinter, featuring the lead character from my middle grade fantasy novel, Halitor the Hero.

From beginning to end, I hope this book offers a bit of holiday fun more satisfying than a candy cane, and with fewer calories. Sit back, light the fire, and enjoy these seven stories, while the snow (real or imagined) falls and the pitter-patter of reindeer feet is heard on the roof.

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Halitor at Midwinter

Halitor the Hero stared into his fire, shivered, and heaved a sigh that came from the very soles of his ice-crusted boots. He was remembering the previous Midwinter, when he’d been warm and well-fed. Snow had been falling, just as it did now outside his poor shelter, but he’d been inside Alcedor Castle with Melly and the king and all the court. There had been enough people and enough fires there to make even a drafty old castle warm.

Now it was Midwinter’s Eve again, and he was alone and cold, and about to cry.

Midwinter’s Eve, when everyone gathered with family and friends and celebrated the return of the sun—or celebrated to ensure the sun would return. Some said the parties determined how the year would come out, and that was the reason everyone had to gather for the holiday. Many believed that only a really good party could ensure a good year to follow.

Halitor really hoped that wasn’t true. If it was, he was probably ruining the year for scores of people, not to mention himself. And he was supposed to be a Hero (Halitor always thought of it that way, with a capital H like a royal title, thanks to an excessive devotion to The Hero’s Guide to Battles, Rescues, and the Slaying of Monsters). He was supposed to make peoples’ lives better, not worse.

Halitor poked