The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

Chapter 1

    On the first day of Christmas, eleven-year-old Emma sat in the backseat of the social worker's car, her little brother Zach on one side of her, baby Grace sleeping in a car seat on the other side.
    The light was fading fast, streetlights coming on, and the entire neighborhood glowed with the light of thousands of tiny Christmas bulbs strung on just about everything she could see. Snow was falling, big, fat flakes, and everything was so pretty.
    For a moment, Emma thought she might have stepped inside the pages of one of the Christmas books she read to Zach or that maybe she'd shrunk until she was an inch high and was living inside one of her most prized possessions—a snow globe.
    It was so beautiful there, inside the big, old, magical-looking house, so warm, so welcoming. Emma could make it snow anytime she wanted with just a turn of her wrist, a bit of magic that never failed to delight Zach and the baby. She thought nothing bad could happen in a place like that and often wished she could find a way to live inside the little ball of glass.
    Blinking through the fading light and the gently falling snow, she thought for a moment the neighborhood they were driving through looked oddly familiar, though she was sure she'd never been here before. She would have remembered the big, old houses reaching toward the sky, with all those odd angles and shapes, the fancy trim and silly frills that seemed to belong to another place and time.
    Rich people's houses, she thought, the knot in her stomach growing a bit tighter. What would anybody with a house like that want with her and Zach and the baby?
    Zach leaned closer to the window, his nose pressed flat against it, fogging a little circle of glass. "It's almos' Chris'mas. Ever'body has their tree and stuff up."
    "I know, Zach." There were wreaths on doors and on the old-fashioned black lampposts topped with fancy metal curls, the lights perched delicately on top. There were stars made of bright Christmas lights, even Christmas trees in people's yards.
    Emma had never seen people go to so much trouble for Christmas. They must have spent hours. And the money... It must take a lot of money to decorate a house like this just for Christmas. She couldn't imagine what the insides of those houses must be like. She and Zach and the baby didn't need anything fancy. Just a place where they could stay together. She couldn't bear it if they were separated. Emma had to make sure that didn't happen.
    The social worker pulled the car into a long driveway and at first Emma thought they were going to the house on the right, all castlelike and fairy-talish.
    Aunt Miriam—that's what she'd told them to call her—turned off the car and pocketed the keys. She twisted around in her seat and said, "Let me make sure someone's here before we take the baby out in the cold, okay?"
    Emma nodded, knowing they were running out of chances.
    "Zach," Aunt Miriam said. "You stay in your seat belt and in that backseat. Emma, don't let him near the steering wheel or the gearshift. Cars aren't playthings. I'll be right there on the porch. You yell if you need me."
    "Yes, ma'am." Emma put her arm around Zach. She could take care of him and the baby. If someone would just give them a place to stay and something to eat, she could take care of everything else.
    Aunt Miriam got out of the car. A blast of cold air came in before she got the door shut again. Emma shivered a bit. This had to work, she thought, closing her eyes and wishing, praying. This might be their last chance.
    Zach brushed past her to get to the window on the other side of the car.
    "Zach!" she scolded.
    "I gotta see! I gotta see the house," he said, then wailed, "Oh, no!"
    "What?" Emma leaned over the sleeping baby to look herself. It was like all the other houses, big and expensive, certainly like no place they'd ever lived.
    "Chris'mas!" Zach cried.
    "What?"
    "It isn't comin' here," he cried. "No Chris'mas."
    "Oh," Emma said, realizing now what was different about this house.
    She should have known they didn't belong in a place like this. From the moment they pulled into the neighborhood, it had all seemed too good to be true.
    The nice lady from social services had brought them to the only house on the street with no Christmas lights, no tree, no ribbons, no bows, no fake reindeer statues decked out in lights on the lawn.
    Christmas wasn't coming here.
    Emma didn't believe it was coming for her and Zach and the baby, either.
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