Twelve Days by TERESA HILL

their mother's name was. But they had taken her and Zach and Grace away.
    "We had to go, Zach. The policeman said he couldn't leave us there by ourselves, remember?" She'd tried to make them leave the kids with her, tried to make them understand that she could take care of Zach and Grace, but she hadn't been able to do that.
    "I didn't tell 'em nothin'," Zach said proudly. "Just my name and Grace's name and yours. And that I'm five."
    "You did great," Emma said.
    "Do you like it here?"
    "I think it's a great place to wait until Mom comes back."
    "They sure have good food here," he said.
    "I know." He'd eaten enough for three boys. Rachel had warmed up lasagna for dinner and let them have all they wanted. Emma's stomach had hurt when she was done, and as she had been helping put things away after dinner, she had noticed that the refrigerator was full. Sam and Rachel must never run out of food.
    "I still miss Mommy," Zach said.
    "I know. But we're together, so we'll be fine. All we have to do is wait."
    Emma believed it. She believed everything her mother said.
    She waited until Zach was all warm and boneless with sleep, then got up and dug through the Wal-Mart bags for her snow globe. She polished the glass where it had gotten smudged with fingerprints and stared inside it, as she never had before. Honestly, she didn't think she was imagining things, but she had to be sure. It had been a long time since she believed in magic, after all.
    Emma grabbed her coat and shoved her arms through the sleeves, but she couldn't find her shoes. So she just put her socks on and padded downstairs. She didn't hear anything, but the light was still on in the family room. Someone might still be awake. She was extra careful to be quiet when she slid back the lock and opened the front door.
    It was cold, and her feet sank into the snow with every step she took, getting wetter and colder by the minute.
    She went clear across the street, and when she turned around, there was the house, in the midst of the glistening snow, moonlight and streetlights and the lights from inside setting it aglow. It had beautiful windows, like the kind you saw in church, with all sorts of pretty colors in the glass. Little rectangles of blues, reds, and yellows framed each window in the front of the house.
    It was the windows that cinched it for her when she held her snow globe up in front of her, looking from it to the house, then back again.
    She didn't notice the cold at all anymore, and she wasn't even scared of being out here in the dark by herself in this new place. She wasn't scared of anything.
    Because they were just the same.
    The house in her snow globe and the house where she and Zach and Grace were staying were just the same.
    It had to be a sign, Emma decided. She'd always looked at the house inside the little glass ball and thought nothing bad could ever happen there, and now she was living in that house. Which meant everything was going to be okay. Emma was sure of it.

 
     
     
    Chapter 4

     
    On the second day of Christmas, in those odd moments between sleeping and waking, Rachel rolled over in her bed, instinctively reaching for Sam, but he wasn't there. She forgot sometimes before she truly woke up, and this morning she remembered something else, something even worse.
    Sam was leaving her.
    The memory stopped her cold. It hit with enough force to take her breath away even now, and she felt every bit as lost and as scared as she had yesterday when she'd heard him on the phone.
    Rachel lay there, almost paralyzed. She'd thought it couldn't possibly be as overwhelming the second day, but it was.
    Sam was leaving.
    The words seemed to echo around inside her head, drowning out everything else for a long, frightening moment. Her eyes flooded with tears for a moment, and then the moisture overflowed. She just let those tears fall.
    Oh, Sam.
    She wondered, not for the first time, if he'd ever really loved her, something that hurt just about as much as