The Stroke of Winter

by Wendy Webb

After what seemed like an eternity, she took the familiar sharp right turn into Wharton and exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Wharton’s independent bookstore, Just Read It,

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This was one of the treasures of Wharton, the community spirit of neighbor-helping-neighbor that most everyone seemed to embody.

At the utterly normal sight, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“It sort of makes you realize that the little things—a glass of wine, a great meal, the company of friends—are actually the big things,”

In Duluth, just down the lake’s shoreline from Wharton, there was Bentleyville, which had grown out of one man’s light display in his own yard into a twinkling wonderland that people walked through in the city’s Bayfront Park.

Curled up in bed in his (no doubt, designer) pajamas,

The great Sebastian Bell

power and influence,

“It was the madness, my dear.”

“We didn’t know how to dress for a haunting,” she said, shrugging. “You look great, guys,” Tess said, giving them each a kiss on the cheek.