Nollaig Caird

Holiday Family Fiction

A Hearth for the Holidays

Nollaig Caird

The letter arrived on Christmas Eve with no stamp, no return address, and ash caught in the fold like a secret that had survived a fire. Orla Devane knew better than to touch it. She had spent fifteen years building a life out of that exact discipline: do not touch what can burn you, do not ask questions that have already cost you a home, do not go back to Emerald Harbour simply because an old woman dies and the dead get sentimental with timing.