The ice sparkled over the streets, like the tiniest of fairy lights alighting the pathway as little Tommy Peck walked along the pavement, sometimes having to steady himself against the wall when the frozen ground became too treacherous under his feet.

The town was practically dead, as if the ice had descended and frozen everything in a wintry picture postcard scene that wouldn't be out of place on one of those old jigsaw puzzles you usually found nestled at the back of a charity shop shelf, or shoved under a pile of other useless junk at a car-boot sale. It was only the odd passing car that reminded Tommy that the town wasn't dead after all. It was just Christmas Day and everyone was inside, recovering from their sumptuous turkey dinners, surrounded by remnants of wrapping paper and pretending they liked spending the day together, while instead spending their time with their heads buried in Facebook or Twitter.

Despite the winter chill, Tommy had unzipped his coat, not wanting to cover up the bright red pom-pom-nose of Rudolph on his knitted Christmas jumper, particularly when it matched the scarlet pom-pom on his woolly hat so perfectly. There had seemed something quite wrong about squashing Rudolph's nose inside his coat and although the cold was seeping through the tiny holes in the knit, Tommy smiled every time he looked down to see the oversized bobble poking out from his chest and wobbling slightly as he walked.

The only thing that bothered him about his outfit was his choice of footwear, having plumped for his trainers instead of his new bright yellow wellies. The ice hadn't quite warranted the boots, he'd decided just before he'd left the house, but now, as his feet kept slipping on the ice in his too-shiny fake leather trainers, he kept thinking about the wellies where he'd left them by the door and wishing he'd worn them instead.

A troubled frown wrinkled his brow as he walked, silently cursing himself for making the wrong decision and silently cursing his parents for no longer being the type of parents who cared whether their child was wearing suitable footwear. Wear the boots. Don't wear the boots. Whatever, Tommy. The truth was they didn't seem to care much about anything these days and they certainly didn't seem to be all that bothered about what Tommy wore on his feet, or anywhere else for that matter. They at least fed him though, which of course, Tommy couldn't complain about, although he often had this vision of himself as Oliver Twist, holding out his bowl for more and wondering when the day would come when they wouldn't be able to give him more.

More? You want ... MORE?

What would happen then? The lines on his forehead deepened even further as he thought about it, his bottom lip sticking out in a sullen pout. He didn't want to think about it. He'd come out for a Christmas Day walk, wearing his favourite Christmas jumper and the last thing he wanted to think about was them. He wanted to be out in the cold, crisp air, when the town was as quiet as the grave and just breathe in the silence without having to talk to anyone, without having anyone looking at him the way they looked at him.

Of course, he couldn't help but think it was a bit criminal, wearing a jumper as awesome as this and not have people look at it, but deep down he knew it didn't really matter. He knew it was awesome. He felt awesome wearing it. And what's more, it felt great not to be cooped up inside that house, where the air was stale and stagnant and where the dust had settled so thick in places that he could write his name on the surfaces with his finger. It had been quiet in there too, but not like it was out here on the frozen streets. Inside, it had been an uneasy silence, one that burdened every room with its presence, one that followed him with accusatory eyes and Tommy had breathed a sigh of welcome relief as soon as the front door had clicked shut behind him and he'd found himself standing on the path, with the evening moonlight making the ice glisten and sparkle like glitter on a Christmas card.

At the end of the road, the church tower stood, flanked by the skeletal branches of the great oaks in the cemetery. The cross on the top of the tower glinted in the lunar light and the sight of it made Tommy smile the closer he got.

He loved the old cemetery at night. Loved how the light glistened off the moss-shrouded gravestones. Loved how the long winding roots of the oaks poked up from the cold, hard earth liked gnarled fingers and clutched the old tombstones, as if claiming possession of the churchyard itself. Loved hearing the owls hooting softly in the trees and the bats squeaking overhead. And he loved how he could walk through the graveyard without being disturbed, taking time to read the names and dates etched on the stones. He'd even memorised some of them and, back at home, when the silence became too much to bear, he shut himself away in his room and thought about those names, making up stories about who there were and what their lives had been like.

There was Ethel Ashcroft, for example, born 1924, died just eight years later, who, Tommy had decided, had been a bony-kneed girl with blonde ringlets, who liked hopscotch and humbugs and who dressed up her dolls with the same ribbons in their hair as she wore in hers.

Another was Arthur Ernest Wood, born 1931, died 2002. Arthur had been passionate about aviation since he'd learnt about the Wright brothers at school and later went on to marry an air hostess he met on his first ever flight, believing her to be prettier than any blooming Hollywood actress he'd ever seen.

Bernard Baker, born 1898, died 1953, had been an actual baker, the best in the whole county in fact and he was never happier than when up to his elbows in flour, churning out batch after batch of farmhouse loaves, currant buns and Eccles cakes. Bernard, was a particular favourite of Tommy's, because whenever he thought about him, he was sure he could smell the comforting scent of freshly-baked bread and cakes wafting through the house and it made his stomach grumble in a way it rarely did anymore. He'd learned to live with the emptiness in his gut, just as he'd learned to live with the emptiness in the house.

In the evenings, walking through the graveyard, Tommy had taken to greeting each of his new friends in turn as he passed them by, sometimes stopping to chat a bit about his day, and to ask them about theirs. Of course, they didn't actually answer him, but in his head the conversation flowed, as if they'd been friends for ever and as if talking to crumbling gravestones was the most normal thing in the world.

It wasn't lost on Tommy that he seemed to have more in common with the dead now than with the living, but there was a small sense of comfort in that, something which filled that great gaping hole inside and softened the silence that rang in his head like the clanging of church bells.

Forgetting the ice rink under his feet momentarily, Tommy almost skipped through the entrance to the cemetery, feeling the slide of his soles on the slippery path and giggling to himself as he managed to stay upright. Choosing his steps more carefully, he hummed one of his favourite Christmas songs as he meandered through the graveyard, stopping every now and then to whisper hello to the dead and to admire how beautiful the grass looked covered in its crisp white coverlet of frost.

He hadn't gone far, however, when he realised that he wasn't quite alone as he would have hoped.

Up ahead, stalking through the gravestones, was a shadow; a large but twisted shadow, like a man so tall that he had to stoop as he walked. He appeared to be wearing a long dark overcoat that reached all the way to his ankles, the large collar pulled up around his neck. Long straggly hair passed his shoulders and on top of his head, worn jauntily to one side was a ... top hat?

Tommy blinked and rubbed his eyes with his gloved fists in disbelief. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen a real person wearing a top hat before and especially not in the town where he lived. People there wore baseball caps and woolly hats. Not top hats. Never top hats. From what Tommy had read in books and seen on TV, only gentleman or villains wore top hats and this man definitely didn't look like much of a gentleman. Could he be a villain? A villain creeping through the frozen fog. Images burned in his head, of another top hat-wearing villain who crept through fog so thick you could barely see your feet on the cobbled path. A villain who tore and shred. A villain who ripped.

He hesitated on the path, unsure what to do.

Villain or not, this was new. This was different. And Tommy, who had become accustomed to routine, didn't really like different very much.

He rarely saw anyone about on his evening walks in the cemetery, especially now the weather had turned especially cold. The odd drunk or two, maybe, stumbling up the path, beer can still in hand, mumbling incoherently. Occasionally the vicar, but even he often had the good grace to stay inside the vicarage on nights like these. But nobody intentionally visited the cemetery as the chill of the evening crept between the gravestones and the moonlight danced over the crumbling tombs.

Nobody but Tommy.

And now, it seemed, this hunched ghoul of a man who definitely didn't look as if he was visiting a deceased loved one. After all, who came to visit the dead at this time of night?

The boy knew he should turn back. Prickles of unease shivered up his spine. He could pretend he hadn't seen the man who was creeping through the hardy tufts of grass that grew strong and virulent over the graves leeching what little life might remain in the soil. He could forget he had ever seen him at all, and fortunately for Tommy, the man hadn't yet spotted him, seeming preoccupied by something on the ground close to his feet. Yes, he thought, I'll go now, before it's too late.

Backing away slowly, Tommy began to head in the direction he'd came, but no sooner had he turned around than a voice followed him down the path, crisp and clear as it was carried on the cold, night air.

'Boy? Oh, boy?'

He stopped abruptly, feeling his stomach flip. The large pom-pom on his chest wobbled as he came to a sudden halt.

'Where you goin', boy?'

The voice was gruff, with Cockney undertones that reminded Tommy of Bill Sykes, even though the hunched man with his long overcoat and straggly hair looked more Fagan than Sykes.

Slowly, as if the chill from the ground had seeped into his bones and was freezing him to the spot, Tommy turned back to face the stranger, who made no attempt to approach, but instead remained where he was, his gaze fixed firmly on Tommy.

'Watcha doin', boy? Out 'ere so late on yer own, creeping 'mongst the rotting corpses and gravestones?'

Tommy wanted to point out that it was the man who was doing all the creeping, whereas he had been walking on the pathway, albeit less confidently than usual what with the ground being so precarious under his feet, but he decided against it. He also wanted to point out that the man himself stunk like a rotting corpse, catching his scent on the light breeze, but he figured that probably wasn't the politest thing he could say to an adult and his mother and father had always told him to be polite to his elders.

He shrugged. 'I was just taking a walk.'

The man stumbled forwards a step - no, shuffled, Tommy thought - and stopped, touching a finger to the brim of his hat and tipping it up slightly, attempting to get a better look of the boy. The moonlight lit up half of the man's face revealing a long, crooked nose and a scar that run over his lips and ended on his chin, making his mouth droop into a grimace on one side.

'Takin' a walk, you say? What's a young boy like you takin' a walk in a cemetery, of all places? On Christmas Day?'

'I like it here.'

'You like it 'ere?' His voice pitched up an octave.

The man hunched over further, leaning forward as he studied Tommy, the one eye that Tommy could see squinting with suspicion. 'Nobody likes it 'ere but the dead, and trust me, even they don't think much o' it. Boys like you ain't meant to like places like this. Whatcha really doin' here, eh?'

The Fagan-man shuffled forward some more, until he was standing on the path.

'Come on, boy, you tell me the truth now and don't be lyin'. I can smell a liar a mile off.'

As if to prove the point, he sniffed long and hard, which ended up in a hacking cough that rasped raw in his throat. Bending low, he spat a bloody globule of phlegmy mess onto the ground, before wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his coat.

Tommy clenched his gloved hands into tight balls.

'Honestly, sir, I just wanted to come out for a walk. I like the cemetery, it's quiet and peaceful.'

'Sir?' The man threw back his head - his hat somehow managing to stay fixed in place - and laughed, revealing a set of blackened teeth, some of which were missing. 'Not sure I've been called sir in a long time. But I like it. In fact,' he said, now removing the hat and sweeping it out in front of him as he mock-bowed, showing that he had far more hair on the sides of his head than he did on top. 'You can call me Sir Isaac Moloch, at yer service, dear boy.'

Tommy couldn't help but giggle a little at the funny name and the funny, awkward bow, even though he knew he shouldn't.

'What's yer name, boy?' Moloch asked.

Never talk to strangers, Tommy, the voice of his mum whispered in his ear. Never, ever. But the words tumbled out of his mouth regardless. It was just a name, after all and what harm could a name do?

'Tommy, sir. Tommy Peck.'

Moloch grinned a blackened, gaping grin. 'Well now, it's good to meet yer, Master Tommy Peck. Seeing as yer 'ere, why dontcha come and take a seat with me over on this 'ere bench?'

He gestured to one of the benches that lined the long pathway, dotted here and there for those people who liked to come and sit here during the day and stare at the gravestones, clutching flowers to their chest and willing their loved ones to rise again.

Without waiting for Tommy to answer, Moloch shuffled over to the old bench, that seemed to be made more of graffiti and carved names that it did wood, and took a seat, huffing and puffing as he did so. When he seemed relatively comfortable, he looked up and patted the space by the side of him on the bench, shooting Tommy another grin.

'Come then, Master Peck, sit down a while and let us two gentlemen talk a while.'

Never, ever Tommy.

Tommy hesitated, wondering how he was going to decline without sounding terribly impolite. 'Thank you, sir, but I really should be getting home now. My parents will be getting worried about me.'

Moloch drummed his fingers against the arm of the bench, a dull rhythmic heartbeat against wood.

'Will they now?' he croaked, with a sly smile, although his beady eye spoke of mock-innocence and beguile. 'Begging yer pardon, Master Peck, but any folks who let their boy go walkin' in cemeteries on Christmas Day when he should be at 'ome with them don't sound like folks who are worried about their son, like, yer know?'

Tommy did know. Tommy knew that only too well, but he wasn't about to let Moloch think he was right. He puffed up his chest huffily.

'Begging your pardon, sir, they do worry, in fact they worry very much, but they know I like my walks and they let me go as long as I'm back on time.'

The cold nestled into his stomach as the words slipped easily from his mouth, almost as if it had been waiting for them to leave so it could claim a little bit more of him each time he lied. He always felt cold these days and it was a cold that his favourite Christmas jumper and matching woolly hat couldn't fix.

Moloch twisted so his whole face was caught in the moonlight, revealing a mess of molten flesh where his other eye should have been. Tommy stifled a gasp, betrayed by the whisper of air clouding from his mouth.

The man's grin stretched even wider.

'Yer sure you won't take a seat beside me?' When Tommy shook his head, the old man sniffed and spat blood again. 'Ah, bet yer folks told yer not to speak to strangers, eh?'

The boy stiffened some more, wondering if the man would notice if he took a step backwards. He had a feeling that one good eye saw too much.

Chuckling, Moloch stretched out, resting his arm along the back of the bench. 'That be good sound advice, young Master, for strangers often spell trouble. So it's a good job we're acquainted now, ain't it?

Tommy wasn't sure that the swapping of names meant they were acquainted but he said nothing for he knew Moloch was right on one count; strangers were trouble.

'So what yer really doing out 'ere, eh?' The man motioned to the graves lining the path. 'You got someone 'ere in the ground? Family maybe? Friend?'

'Friend.' Friends.

'Yer a young 'un to have a friend stinking up the ground out 'ere. What 'appened to this this friend of yers?'

Think, Tommy, think.

He saw words then, words carved into old stone, half-strangled with thick, dewy moss.

'Consumption,' he blurted out. 'Consumption, sir.'

Moloch's one good all-seeing eye widened and he nodded slowly, one gnarled finger tapping at his lip.

'Oh? Consumption, yer say? Well now, that's a mightily ol' word for such a one as young as the good Master Tommy Peck, if yer don't mind me sayin'. And remind me, what might consumption be exactly?'

Tommy was sure that the icy fingers of the old oak tree must have reached in and grasped his heart. Consumption was ...what? The only facts he knew about his dead friends were names and dates and that Ethel, his humbug and hopscotch-loving friend, had died of consumption, but to Tommy it meant nothing. It was just another word etched onto a tombstone. He took a wild stab at it anyway, praying that he wasn't too far off the mark.

'It's a ... a sickness. A terrible sickness.'

The man's mouth twitched on one side. 'That so, eh?'

'Yes, sir. It was horrible. She was sick for a really long time.'

Moloch drummed his fingers against the wood again, slowly, maddeningly.

'Ah, then maybe death was a blessing to her.'

Tommy wrinkled up his face indignantly. 'How can death ever be better than life?'

'Yer would prefer yer friend to have suffered longer, Master Peck?'

'Of course not, that's not what I meant!' Tommy pursed his lips. 'I don't want anyone to suffer, it's just death is so... so... forever.'

'That it is, young sir, that it is.' He smiled again, his good eye glinting wickedly. 'But sometimes life ain't so tolerable for those that be sufferin'. Life is for living. Life is for grabbin' and feelin' it kick back in your hands, all that wonderful life right there in yer grasp. Life is all about feelin' the blood rush through yer veins. Oh, mark my words, Master Peck, life is beautiful.'

His gaze swept over Tommy, from top to bottom, and he ran his tongue slowly along his chapped lips.

Tommy finally took a step back.

'Yes,' he stammered. 'You're probably right. In fact, I'm sure of it. Now if you would excuse me, sir, it really is time for me to go home.'

'Ah yes, those folks of yers will be worried, won't they?' Moloch said, nodding thoughtfully, before leaning forward and resting his elbow on the arm of the bench and pointing one gnarled finger at the boy. 'Do yer know what I think, Master Peck?'

Tommy shook his head and swallowed hard.

Moloch's blackened smile was gone, the moonlight glistening on his scarred flesh.

'I think you've been lyin' to me, I do. I think you've been lyin' to ol' Moloch and I don't think that's what friends do.'

He stood, pushing himself up from the bench, suddenly looking much taller than he had before, a darkness nestling in the molten fissures of his face.

As the old man shuffled forwards, his boots crunching on the icy ground, everything inside Tommy was screaming at him to run, to get away now before it was too late, but he couldn't. Frozen to the spot, his limbs had become as heavy as the oak branches, as heavy as the tombstones surrounding him.

Moloch was so close now that Tommy could clearly see the bloody tributaries in the white of his eye.

'You see, I've been around I 'ave. Travelled far and wide, seen things that'll make yer guts twist into knots and yer bladder piss out everything it has onto the dirty ground. I've see things that'll make the toughest bastard sob like a baby. Hell, I've seen things that'll make the Devil shit himself, swear allegiance to his Holy Father again and go runnin' back up to those Pearly Gates with 'is forked tail tucked between 'is bloody legs. I've met all kinds of scum and fallen souls, all kinds of beast and vermin this world 'as to offer. I know things, I know people and there ain't been a man yet who could get the better of me, I can tell yer, so yer can bet the big fuzzy pom-pom on that nifty jumper of yers, that no mere child can get one past me neither.'

The man reached over with one yellow-nailed finger and poked Rudolph's knitted nose, leaning closer so that Tommy could smell his fetid breath.

'I think there's a reason why you ain't at home right now. I don't think yer out 'ere because you like takin' walks by yerself. I don't think yer was out 'ere visiting a dead friend. And I don't think you'd be out 'ere if yer folks really were the type to worry about yer. Specially not on Christmas Day of all days.'

With an indignant shame burning deep that Moloch would dare to touch his favourite - most awesome - jumper, Tommy turned to run, but he'd barely taken a few steps when he heard that same rasping laugh, followed by that chest-bursting cough that seemed to shake the man's whole body as he bent double, hacking.

Tommy would have gone too. He would have made it out of the cemetery and up the road before Moloch had caught him, if it hadn't been for that cough.

Glancing back, Tommy watched as Moloch wiped his coat sleeve over his mouth, a reddened streak of spittle smeared across his twisted scar and down onto his chin.

He stared, feeling that empty pit more than ever, feeling the cold more than ever and wanting so badly just to feel warm again, to feel something other than this horrible, gnawing sensation in his gut. Clenching his fists, he sighed. He should go home. He knew he should just go home, but he couldn't. Not now.

'Sir?' he said, cocking his head to one side as he eyed the blood staining the man's chin. 'You were right, sir.'

'Eh?' Moloch looked up, his one good eye narrowing in confusion.

'I did lie. There is a reason I'm out here and not at home.'

'And what might that be, Master Peck?'

Tommy smiled.

'I was hungry. I'm still hungry.'

It turned out - unsurprisingly to Tommy - that Moloch, the traveller who had seen everything, hadn't quite seen everything at all.

He certainly hadn't ever seen anything like Tommy before, but then again neither had most people. Monsters didn't come in child-size. Monsters didn't worry over suitable footwear and monsters definitely didn't wear Christmas jumpers with bright red pom-poms wobbling on their chest.

But Tommy Peck was a monster.

A monster with the sharpest of teeth and a hunger in his belly that never tired. A monster with a thirst for blood, ever since the last stranger came to town - a stranger who, unlike Moloch, possibly could make the Devil shit himself - and had made Tommy just like him.

Never, ever talk to strangers, Tommy.

But he had and now everything was different. He was different.

Moloch tried to run, of course - they always did - but his shuffling gait and limited vision, not to mention his old, tired body, was never going to be a match for Tommy, who gave chase with relative ease and threw himself onto the fleeing man's back, bringing him down hard onto the frozen ground.

There, in between the gravestones of his dead friends, Tommy sank his teeth into the old man's throat, tearing at his putrid skin - because ironically it really did stink of rotting corpses - and buried his face into his ravaged flesh. And there, not far from where the tree roots laid claim to churchyard, Tommy laid claim to Moloch, feasting on the blood that spewed from the gaping hole in his neck, rejoicing as it coated his tongue and streamed down his throat like a thick, coppery tide. He rejoiced as the light of the moon glinted off the cross on the church tower, as it reflected off the myriad of colours on the stained-glass windows and as the man beat his feet against the ground and screamed his muffled screams into the cold earth.

He drank and he gorged, he fed and binged, because after all, it was Christmas and isn't that what everyone did on Christmas Day?

When he was finally done and Moloch's bladder had relinquished its contents just before his feet had stopped hammering the ground, Tommy wiped his face with his gloved hands, before removing his blood-saturated gloves and shoving them into his pockets. Returning to the bench, he sat down, his feet not quite reaching the ground, and frowned at the blood which was now smeared across Rudolph's face and the big oversized pom-pom, matting the woollen threads together.

Footsteps on the path made him glance up and he zipped up his coat, swinging his legs slightly as he hummed, watching as the vicar struggled up the icy walkway, his breath dancing clouds in the cold evening air.

The vicar slowed as he approached, clapping his hands together to gather warmth and clearly failing miserably as his fingers were taking on an alarming purplish tone. Tommy thought it a shame that his own gloves were in need of a good wash now, as otherwise he would have offered them to the clergyman, who he happened to like immensely because he always looked upon Tommy with kindness whenever he found him taking his walks in the cemetery.

'We all need to find our peace somewhere, Tommy,' he'd said once on meeting Tommy during one of his evening jaunts and the little boy couldn't have agreed more.

'Evening, Tommy,' the vicar said as he passed, his broad smile nestled in his thick, bushy beard. 'A beautiful winter's night, don't you think?'

'Yes, vicar,' Tommy replied, blinking up at the tall man, as he walked by.

The vicar's shoes crunched delightfully on the thick frost and then stopped. He turned and looked back at Tommy sitting all alone on the bench and a frown troubled his features.

'I'm just off to prepare the church for service, would you like to help me rather than sit out here in the cold?'

Tommy hesitated, chewing on his bottom lip.

'No, not tonight, thank you. I should really be getting home.'

'Oh, of course, you should,' the vicar replied, nodding enthusiastically. 'Your parents will be wondering where you are.' He paused, turned to go and then glanced back at the little boy again, who was still swinging his legs. 'We missed your parents at service these past few weeks, Tommy. Do you think they'll come back to the congregation soon? I do so hate losing sheep from the flock.'

Tommy thought about his parents, picturing them as they were now, laid out in their bed, mum still in her nightdress, dad in his pyjamas. He could see their faces so clearly and almost wished he couldn't - faces of the dead-yet-not-dead, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide and scared, unable to move from the vampire venom that had rendered them under his spell, unless he, of course, bid them to move. He could even smell them, the sweet coppery scent from the puncture wounds in their throats from which he regularly fed, holding his hands over their eyes as he did it, so not to see their awful, accusatory stares.

'I'm sure they will, vicar.'

He didn't really like lying, he never had, but if there was one thing Tommy had learned recently, it was that sometimes - just sometimes - a few lies were a necessary evil to protect the truth.

The vicar smiled then, hope sparking in his red-rimmed eyes. 'Wonderful news, really wonderful news. Merry Christmas, Tommy.'

'Merry Christmas, vicar.'

He stayed to watch the vicar as he stumbled and skidded up the path towards the church, fumbling with his keys in the lock and pulling the huge door open, a shard of amber light penetrating the low-level fog that crept over the cemetery.

Tommy sighed as he stood up. It was a shame that the vicar had chosen tonight of all nights to take a walk through the churchyard. The boy really did like him, but deaths tended to arouse suspicion even of the most unlikely of suspects and the vicar would remember him.

After all, who came to visit the dead at this time of night, apart from the dead themselves?

He pulled open the huge church door and poked his head into the light.

'Vicar? Oh, vicar?'

**THE END**

Author's Note:

Yes, yes, I know it's WAY past Christmas now, so posting a story set at Christmas-time possibly isn't the done thing, but this story has been buzzing around my head since Christmas Day and what with work and editing taking up much of my time, I've only just managed to finish it, so please do forgive me.

Incidentally, Tommy Peck and his most awesome of awesome Christmas jumpers, was inspired by a little boy I saw walking close to the churchyard on Christmas Day and who stuck in my head for some time after that as I couldn't work out why a boy would be out and about walking the streets, rather than be at home with his family. Of course, I'm not suggesting he was a vampire (unless of course he was of the sparkly variety and could stomach the daytime) but I thought it slightly odd nevertheless and so Tommy Peck was born, with perhaps a little nod to Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist, because let's face it, there's nothing more sinister than when the innocent turn out to be anything but.

Anyway, I thank you for reading and for letting me take you back a few weeks to Christmas (unless of course you're reading this next Christmas time, in which case, Merry Christmas to you - your timing is perfect!).

Linz x