Christmasville

No one knows where the trains go or what lies beyond the mountains and the forests. They've never seen grass or walnut trees, but they do discover how tomatoes are named.  And roses and violets and orchids. There aren't any summer vacations. No spring showers. And as for leaves rusting in the autumn rain?

"What does 'autumn' mean?" asks Sperry. "I'm not familiar with that word."

And so begins the tale of Christmasville

In a town nestled between magic and miracle, dream and deja vu, Mary Jane Higgins embarks on a series of perilous journeys, determined to resolve the riddle of Christmasville. Although it's forbidden, she crosses the train tracks, approaches the "bottomless abyss," travels through a wilderness that "operates according to a different set of rules." Along the way she encounters a mysterious donkey, a shepherd boy with his lamb and three riders on...on camels?

"...but camels only exist in myths and fairy tales, like unicorns and giraffes, dragons and elephants."

On the changing checkerboard of Christmasville, buildings and homes are arranged annually according to a new "plan" of things. The calendar consists of only two pages: December and January. But no one gets any older. And the worst of ailments is poison ivy, and color blindness, and signs of that most harrowing of afflictions: partial baldness.

It's a town perennially covered in new fallen snow, perpetually decorated in yuletide trimmings. It's a town that in many ways is typical, or evocative - a town in which we we might dream of living - but one which operates according to slightly skewed phenomena: time, space and memory. And no one - save one - suspects that something is awry.

Chapter Titles:

Prologue:          She Bites into a Cookie, Swallows a Mouthful of Milk and Begins

• Chapter 1:     Christmasville

• Chapter 2:     A Snowman from China

• Chapter 3:     Faith

• Chapter 4:     The Perennial Shade of Trees

• Chapter 5:     A Game of Checkers

• Chapter 6:     The Eve of St. Nick

• Chapter 7:     First Night

• Chapter 8:     Maiden Journey

• Chapter 9:     Thirty-Two Degrees of Illumination

• Chapter 10:   What the Iceman Said

• Chapter 11:    The House at the End of the World

• Chapter 12:    Elastic Plastic

Epilogue:          A Remarkable Discovery