Yule, Ohio (Prologue)

A dark wintery tale of full of lore, fantasy, and dreams...

Welcome to the opening part of a story that has been pushing its way into my mind’s eye since autumn’s chilly winds first graced my face this year.

Enjoy!

Yule, Ohio

The fluffy snowflakes fell everywhere over the small town—onto the pine tree branches, onto the frosted grass, still long from the lack of mowing. But mostly, they fell onto the roof of the large hall, made to look like a feasting hall from Norway. It had the kind of rustic charm that immediately transports a visitor to another time or another place.

The town had few hills, being primarily a woodlands with the occasional field of green or yellow grass. But the largest hill was the one the owner had chosen to purchase sometime in the late 1960s, or so the story went. The tallest trees could not block the view from up there, and the winding road that led up to the longhouse was visible from several points around.

The hall was a special place for so many. For decades, it had served as the heart of this town. It was fashioned in a manner that evoked a longhouse, or mead hall. It was rectangular, far longer than it was wide. The logs that formed its walls were as big as a grown man could wrap his arms around. The roof was fashioned from hardwood shingles, laid over one another like the armored scales of a large mythic serpent. They had a ruddy color to them that was dark enough to be unremarkable at nighttime, but in the blazing of the summer sun they would shine brightly casting a reddish aura around the hall.