During the following century, new owners had transformed the house into a duplex by blocking off the staircase and adding two inner doors inside the entryway. One led upstairs, the other opened into The Gingerbread House. This double entry had sold Olivia on the idea of sinking a good chunk of her divorce settlement into a mortgage. The location, the northeast corner of Chatterley Heights’s busy town square, couldn’t be more perfect. She’d decided to open a cookie-cutter store downstairs, complete with its own kitchen, and she could live upstairs, all for one hefty monthly payment.

On this particular morning, she questioned the wisdom of her business and residential choices.

Olivia unlocked The Gingerbread House and stepped inside, bolting the door behind her. She could make out shapes in the darkness, but she knew better than to feel her way along without light. The store was a glorious cookie-cutter minefield—cookie cutters served as lamp and curtain pulls, themed cookie-cutter mobiles swung from the ceiling, and small tables holding elaborate displays dotted the room. Customers with aesthetic leanings felt free to rearrange tables on whim.

Olivia twisted the dimmer switch enough so she could cross to the kitchen without breaking several toes or her neck. Even in her crabby, sleep-interrupted state, she felt a ping of pleasure as dozens of metal cookie cutters caught the light and glistened like waves in the moonlight. For Olivia, each day began like her childhood Christmas mornings, when she would sneak downstairs before anyone else was up. She would plug in the tree lights and sit cross-legged in the dark, staring at the sparkles of color. If she swung her head back and forth fast enough, the lights would blur and appear to move, like multicolored shooting stars.

Then her younger brother Jason would bound downstairs, whooping and jabbering with excitement. He’d flip on all the lights and dive for his presents, ripping the shiny paper into shreds. She loved her baby brother, but he sure could destroy a moment of enchantment.