espionage.

word play

code-making and -breaking.

treason and spy-catchers

secret messages

clandestine meetings with Tolkien and the Inklings at the Bird and Baby

i love this one.  It's brilliant.

that is all.

Except -- Gregor Xane is awesome.

thank you, Mr. Xane, for gifting your short story.  Happy holidays to you, too.

atmospheric Christmas tale of horror and gore, but also four pages full of fun.

thank you E. for your Christmas gift to all.

Hands on hips, head tilted back, Yvie frowned at the kitten atop the Christmas tree. The little ball of ginger and white fluff had knocked the angel askew and clung in its place, mewing defiance and fear.

 It turns out that rescuing kittens stranded in a tree at the mall gives "good shopping karma." And maybe good karma in other areas as well.

there is a surprising amount of depth in this very short Christmas story.  I especially like Yvie, who had written "her Master’s thesis on domestic courage, on women during the Great Depression and the Second World War and how their belongings revealed their survival strategies. . . how women from the past had written their stories not with words, but in how they furnished their houses, sewed their clothes, and laid out their gardens."

She is looking forward to starting her new job, one that combines her education, her skill in photography and her love of travel and adventure.  And then she runs into Gray.