Where Christmas Waited for Her

She found true love in the past

Entry for:
"The Bard's Hall Contest" 


Maria woke to the creak of floorboards and the low whistle of winter wind.
Her eyes opened slowly, confusion blooming in her chest. The room was unfamiliar—small, modest, warmed by a cast-iron stove glowing softly in the corner. Quilts layered her bed, heavy and hand-stitched. Frost traced delicate patterns across the windowpane.
This wasn’t her apartment.
She sat up, heart pounding. Her nightstand held a kerosene lamp, not her phone. Her clothes—folded neatly on a wooden chair—were a simple wool dress and shawl.
Outside, a bell rang. Not electronic. Not distant. A church bell, deep and steady.
Maria hurried to the window.
A snow-covered American town stretched before her—wooden storefronts, a general store with painted lettering, horses tied to hitching posts, smoke curling from chimneys. Pine wreaths and red ribbons decorated doors. Children ran through the snow, boots thudding, laughter bright.
A sign across the street read:
Pine Hollow, Massachusetts — 1843
Maria pressed her hand to the glass.
“No,” she whispered. “This can’t be real.”


Yet it was.
She stepped outside into the cold, her breath turning white instantly. The town was alive with Christmas morning warmth—neighbors greeting one another, baskets exchanged, carols drifting from open doors.
“You look lost, miss.”
The voice came from behind her.
She turned to see a man standing a few feet away, tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a wool coat dusted with snow. His dark hair curled beneath his hat, and his eyes—warm brown—studied her with concern rather than suspicion.


“I… I think I am,” Maria said honestly.
He smiled gently. “Christmas does that to folks sometimes. I’m Elias Carter.”
She told him her name. Only her name. She didn’t yet have words for anything else.

Elias owned the town’s print shop, she learned as he walked her through Pine Hollow. Newspapers lay drying on wooden racks, the air smelling of ink and paper. He spoke of the town with quiet affection, of his widowed mother who lived just outside town, of how Christmas had always been his favorite season—“even when times are lean.”
Maria stayed at the Carters’ home that night.
Days passed. Then weeks.


Maria waited to wake up—to return to her life of buzzing notifications, endless rushing, and hollow quiet. But each morning brought the same soft light, the same crackle of firewood, the same snow-laced air.
She learned how to knead bread by hand. How to write letters with ink and patience. How silence could feel full instead of empty.
And Elias was always nearby.

He walked with her through fields blanketed in white, speaking of books he hoped to print someday—poems, stories, ideas that mattered. He listened when Maria spoke, really listened, his attention steady and undivided.
With him, she felt seen in a way she hadn’t known she’d been missing.
On Christmas Eve, the town gathered in the meetinghouse. Candles glowed in every window, turning the night golden. Voices rose together in hymn, imperfect but sincere.


Maria stood beside Elias, their shoulders nearly touching.
“I don’t know how you came to Pine Hollow,” he said quietly, eyes forward, “but I believe the Lord brings people where they’re needed.”
Her throat tightened. “What if I don’t belong here?”
He turned to her then. “Do you feel like you don’t?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.


That night, Maria dreamed of crossroads—one path paved and loud, glowing with artificial light, the other snow-covered and still, lined with lanterns.
She woke knowing the truth.
At dawn, she walked alone to the edge of town, where the forest met the open field. The air shimmered strangely, as though time itself were holding its breath.
She felt it—the door back.


Her old life waited somewhere beyond it. Familiar. Predictable. Lonely in ways she had never admitted.
Behind her, footsteps crunched in the snow.
“Maria.”


She turned.
Elias stood there, breath visible, eyes filled with something between fear and hope.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I had this terrible feeling you’d leave without saying goodbye.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I was given a choice.”


He nodded slowly. “I thought as much.”
She stepped closer. “If I stay… I lose everything I once knew.”
Elias took her hands, rough and warm. “And if you go?”
She looked at him, at the life unfolding quietly behind his eyes. “I lose the life I’ve finally found.”
The air stilled. The strange pull faded.
The choice was made.
Maria stayed.


Spring came gently to Pine Hollow. Snow melted into streams, fields softened, and apple trees bloomed. Maria and Elias married beneath one such tree, sunlight filtering through white petals like blessings.
Years passed.
Their home filled with books, laughter, and the steady rhythm of a life built together. At Christmas, candles still lined the windows, and Maria would pause to watch the snow fall, heart full and certain.
She had not been stranded in the past.
She had been called to it.
And in a small American town in the 1800s, Maria found what time itself could never take away—
a love worth staying for.

Word count: 1000