In the Bleak Christmas Market
by Thomas C. Mavroudis
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
It had been twenty years and a couple weeks since the year everybody died. Not everybody; Daphne had Beth, and Beth Daphne. Their dad died first, succumbing to a walking pneumonia he’d been silently drowning in for months. This sparked a secret cancer in their mother, the chaos of cells in rapid development, crossing from one system to another until the woman was more cancer than parent. And finally their brother. A combination of trazadone, propranolol and a leftover fentanyl patch of their departed mother’s, a precursor of the world to come. The ME ruled it a suicide, but Daphne and Beth knew better.
Luckily, it happened in such succession that the sisters had little time to fret, organizing the funerals and all that goes with them, managing bank accounts and insurance claims, and arranging for final payoffs on a mound of bills. They didn’t have time to lament the passing holiday season, all the friends and families coming to town or leaving town. It was all one sort of giant, solemn holiday. Then when the new year arrived and mostly everything was settled, the sisters had their own affairs to deal with, all the concerns put on hold while they buried their family.
Beth was a weekend away from moving in with her girlfriend, Melissa, when her mother began home hospice. Beth and Daphne cycled shifts aiding their mother, and Melissa understood Beth was never leaving her apartment. They still went to Greece as planned in the early summer, but when they got home, it came to a mutual end.
Daphne had suffered a second miscarriage before her dad passed. She counted the little coffee bean to be part of the year everybody died. Her marriage struggled along through the deaths as her sister’s relationship did—like bare feet on broken glass. Not long after the one-year memorial of her brother, her husband Rick filed for divorce. He wasn’t leaving her for anyone—it was for himself. He never really wanted to be a husband or father anyway. It was another grand start to a new year.
You would think things would get better after two decades, but they don’t. They just get incrementally worse day after day, year after year, like stars growing ever dim. That’s probably what happens when you don’t mourn.
The weather was mild for the longest night of the year. It had snowed in the morning, but the dusting was melted by evening rush hour and the overcast sky enwrapped the tranquility with its blanket. The scent of buttery pretzels and sweet kettle corn was almost enough to overcome the persistent reek of marijuana. Inside the bar tent, a swollen faced man with nine fingers played Christmas songs on a dazzling red and white accordion.
Daphne was hungry, but she didn’t want to eat any of the Old World delicacies. Schnitzel and sauerbraten were too bland for a night like this, especially after two mugs of the hot, rich glühbier. She wanted tacos, as usual when she’d been drinking. To Beth, the glühbier was a meal. She just brought a third round to her sister.
“Drink up, buttercup. The night is just getting started.”
“I need a pretzel, man. Something. How long are we going to stay here?”
“I’ve been waiting for this, Daphne. For years!”
The only other time they experienced the Christkindlmarket, it was a much smaller daytime affair. No alcohol, no Krampus stalking the vendor tents. Beth took an adjunct position in the folklore department of a small Pacific Northwest college that next summer. She thought she would be able to come home more often than she did, including Christmas, but she only made it back for Daphne’s 40th birthday. Four months later, the relentless rain washing away her soul, she returned home, her stuff in a POD, and lived in her sister’s basement for a couple of years.
“Yeah, yeah,” Daphne blew on her mug, took a small sip. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand if she had to. And she had to very soon, the Port-O-Lets inconveniently placed far from the bar tent.
How did Beth move so fluidly, so daintily? Daphne never understood how her petite sister’s body metabolized alcohol so differently from her. Beth drank her glühbier so fast, Daphne was afraid a fourth round was on its way.
“Sister, will you get me a pretzel? Please?”
“Okay sister, the love of my life, I will get you a pretzel.” Beth finished off her drink and glided out of the tent.
The accordion player was joined by an angelically dressed woman, all gold and sparkling, and they sang “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Daphne’s nose was cold and a little runny. The steam from the glühbier made it worse. From her left side, a tissue appeared. She didn’t know how Beth returned so quickly, but it was a man in a shearling jacket and a beaver cowboy hat. He was handsome, maybe a year or so younger than Beth. It made her feel she wasn’t too old yet.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling, taking the tissue, but waiting to use it. She couldn’t tell if the man heard her or not over the music. He smiled and walked away. Oh, she thought, taking a long sip of her drink, the warm, fragrant liquid melting the care away.
Daphne was a stone. A hot stone in a sauna. That’s what she thought as the heady beer began to course more swiftly through her frame. This is so nice, she thought. I wish Beth was here. Suddenly, she became very sad. She was all alone; even her sister had left her. How long had it been? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember what happened to Beth, only that she was gone, too.
“Here, sister-oh-sister. I got one, too, they smelled so good.”
Beth was back, sitting across from Daphne and waving a glistening pretzel in her face.
Daphne’s eyes rolled back and forth over Beth, tears clinging to the corners.
“You okay? You sick?”
Daphne smiled. “No, I’m good.” She took the pretzel, pushed her drink to the side. “This will help,” she said, taking a bite, salt crystals dotting her lips.
“Mmm,” Beth said, her lips glossy with butter. “Just like mom used to make.”
“Heh heh, mom. Helga.”
“Helga! Ja!”
They laughed together.
The accordion player took a break, circling around the tent collecting tips. Beth gave him a buck. The smallest bill Daphne had was a five. She shrugged and dropped it into his felt Alpine hat.
“That’s your new boyfriend,” Beth said.
“Sure is,” Daphne replied. She looked at the far end of the tent for the man who gave her the tissue. The cowboy must have slipped passed in her daze. Instead, her eyes landed on two shadows. They were out of place like a blemish.
“You done with that?” Beth pointed to Daphne’s mug.
Daphne handed it to her. “I’m done. Otherwise I’m about to have a lil’ nappy.”
Beth drank the glühbier with a scowl. “It got cold,” she whined.
Daphne nodded and checked back at the shadows, squinting to see them better through her alcohol blurred gaze. They were indefinable, perhaps nothing but shadow after all.
“I have to move,” Daphne told Beth, “or else this is where I live now.”
They were both tipsy, but no more than most of the market’s patrons. Beth helped her sister to her feet. Daphne felt like she was floating, but not as smoothly as Beth. She looked one more time at the back of the tent—no cowboy, no shadows.
“Where to now?’ Beth asked.
“Well, aren’t we going to look at the cuckoo clocks and stuff?”
“Okay, cuckoo,” Beth said, taking her sister arm-in-arm.
Daphne halted. “Wait, I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“I have to pee. Oh, man I have to pee.”
“Geez, sister, okay, come on, let’s get you to the potty!”
The crowd regarded the sisters with both amusement and annoyance.
The row of Port-O-Lets was all by itself away from everything. They weren’t even arranged near one of the fake antique gaslamps lining the park’s central boulevard.
“Oh, boy,” Beth said, pulling her sister closer.
“I know. How stupid.” Electricity ran around Daphne’s crotch and up and down her legs.
Beth searched the immediate darkness around the six plastic toilets for miscreants and other trouble. “All clear,” she said.
Daphne swiped on her phone’s light and inspected the interior of the toilet she chose. Pretty clean, but she would still hover. The chill on her bare side was painfully stifling, but with a deep relaxing breath and a little push, she began to relieve herself.
They had drunk a lot in a short amount of time. No matter how her little sister could keep going, she needed to eat some real food. For a moment, she was lost in the sharp odor of disinfectant masking the waste, the darkness of the plastic casket and the hypnotic white noise of her urine stream. Outside, voices broke the trance making her bladder seize again. Then she heard her sister laugh, followed by the murmur of idle conversation.
Beth was chatting with a bald guy in a puffy Broncos jacket and a woman who was dressed for the spring, except for the Uggs and white knit hat capping her long red hair.
“There she is,” Beth announced, Daphne stepping gracelessly down from the stall.
From the center of the market came a group of carolers singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
“We gotta go,” Daphne told Beth’s new friends. She took her sister’s hand and tugged her in the direction opposite of the singers.
“What? Are you going to be sick? Just go behind a bush, I’ll watch for you.”
“No, it’s not that.”
They came to one of the exits, and the ground staff wished them a good night and a happy holiday.
“We’ll be back,” Beth affirmed. But Daphne shook her head.
They slowed down when they came to the edge of the park. Beth turned her sister so they were face to face, clasping both her hands, “What’s the matter, Daph?”
“I don’t know. Just something hit me.”
“Yeah. It hits me too. Out of nowhere. Sounds, smells. All the time.”
They hugged.
“Here.” Beth handed Daphne a vape pen.
“Oh no,” Daphne said in a deep voice.
“Come on. It’ll help. I promise.”
Daphne frowned. She hated weed. She hated the way it made her feel stupid. But, she was grateful for the occasional fogging of memory, the numbing of thought. She liked the silly directions it took her and her sister.
“Okay. What kind is this?” She took a hit, choked but held on to most of it.
“Never you mind,” Beth answered.
A wave collapsed over Daphne, not negating but sharpening the effects of the beer. It compartmentalized the drunkenness. At the same time, a curtain was lifted over her mind, revealing a different curtain beneath. “Shit,” she said with a tilting smile and wide eyes that narrowed in slow motion. She was fascinated by how much Beth resembled their brother, how beautiful they both were.
“Come on, pretty sister,” Beth said, pulling Daphne kitty-corner into the crosswalk, the signal beeping, its flashing hand counting down to zero.
They strolled downtown, block by concrete block, within a cloak of obscurity. They gawked at a couple walking a pair of Great Danes, speculating on the impossible size of their apartment. They went deeper into the forest of skyscrapers, encountering a whole band of young women dressed for a Mediterranean cruise. They approached a young man in a hoodie and ball cap striding swiftly from the opposite direction. At half the block away, he looked up at the sisters and, with a panicked grimace, sprinted to the other side of the street. Beth and Daphne didn’t notice.
Finally, they arrived at the train station. The grand building was still fresh with revitalization and glittered with the holiday spirit. Music blared from one of the bars. and delectable smells of coffee, pastries and savory foods spilled from the ever-turning revolving doors. Several stalls dotted the outer court in a small pop-up market.
One of the tents was the current trend of people selling early 2000’s items under the guise of retro and vintage. Even the couple of record crates offered items readily available in the big box stores that started stocking vinyl again. Next to it was another trend: sad terrariums assembled by half-hearted hands and crystals obviously bought online in bulk. Neither vendor acknowledged the sisters.
But the third tent in that cluster displayed nutcrackers, half of them traditional and the other half portraying an array of current pop culture icons. Characters from The Office and Parks and Rec. The vampires from What We Do in the Shadows. Various superheroes.
“Cute!” Daphne exclaimed, pointing to the bunny-eared Louise Belcher.
“Aw…” Beth said. “It’s me.”
“You wish,” Daphne replied, giving Beth a nudge.
“Oh!” Beth yelped. “Where are your cuckoo clocks? We have to go see them.”
“That’s not here. That’s… back there.” Daphne waved her hand behind her. “That’s long ago.” She snickered.
“Whoa,” Beth realized. On their excursion, they had dragged on the vape pen as though chain smoking a pack of cigarettes.
Beth put her hand on Daphne’s shoulder, rubbed the soft fabric. “Oh my God, Tina, I’m starving.”
“I know! I told you that already way back in the past.”
“Well why aren’t we eating? We should be eating something right now.”
“Let’s do it.”
They were making their way across the court toward the fancy taqueria on the other end of the train station when Daphne’s nose caught something delightfully out of place. It was like a window opened onto a tropical island.
“Do you smell that? What is it?”
Beth sniffed the air. “Food?”
Daphne took Beth by the hand and led her to a lone stall on the edge of the court. Inside were crates brimming with exotic fruit: mango, papaya, persimmon, guava, star fruit. All of it perfectly ripe.
The stall appeared unoccupied, but in the low light of the corners stood the vendors. Daphne fought back a shudder when she noticed them. Clad in black hooded overcoats, their faces were faint in the shadow. She thought they could be intricately tattooed. They were diminutive as well, not quite child-size.
“Look,” Beth said, stroking a fresh fig. “Like aunt used to send.”
Their father’s long departed sister lived in Southern California and had fig, orange and pomegranate trees in her yard. Somehow, she managed to mail them a box of the contraband every Christmas, wrapped in quilts or afghans.
Like a match flaring, one of the vendors emerged from its corner handing Daphne a pomegranate. “Merry Christmas,” it said with an indistinguishable voice.
Daphne took the fruit magnetically, mesmerized by the vendor’s disfiguration. Its face was round, cat-like and wrinkled with too much flesh. It didn’t have a nose, only two vertical slits. Not from disease, but voluntarily removed, or simply born that way. It had teeth like dominos that somehow its thin lips stretched over. Its pupils roiled and warped like drops of oil in water.
“Thank you,” Daphne said.
Beth saw the vendor’s face as well, sobering with the adrenaline of shock. “We have to go,” she declared, pulling her sister away.
Daphne skidded over the pavement as if her feet were locked casters. “Hang on,” she said, languidly.
“No,” Beth protested, “I’m cold.”
Daphne held the pomegranate, coveted it like a glass of water in the desert. In the shadow of her hands it looked to Beth like a heart.
“Throw that away, Daphne,” Beth said, too much like a parent.
Daphne responded in kind. “No,” she snipped, clutching the fruit to her belly.
They were seated quickly at the taqueria beside a yellow papier mâché skeleton with butterfly wings. It was hot, as though the heat were malfunctioning.
Daphne set the pomegranate down but kept it close. It looked worse in more light, the slick husk purple in blotches.
“Why don’t you get rid of that thing? It’s gross. Who knows where all that shit came from?”
“Why are you being like that, Beth? I’ve seen you put all kinds of dubious crap in your mouth, no questions asked.”
Normally, Beth would have made a joke about Rocky Mountain oysters, or something, but she only replied, “I don’t know.”
The server took their drink orders: draft Tecate and glasses of water.
Beth looked across the dining room, out the front windows to see the fruit stall. Somehow, she couldn’t see it from her vantage.
Entranced, Daphne’s fingernails poked the glossy skin, plying a soft spot.
“I don’t think you can eat that here.”
Daphne dug a line in the husk with her finger, pried the layer away like she was pulling away a scab, trying to take it all in one piece.
“Stop it, Daphne. I’m serious.” Beth grabbed her sister’s hands.
Daphne blinked, in the act of waking up. She looked at her finger, the nail stained bloody with the sweet juice. “Oh,” she said. “Whoops.” She tried to laugh it off. Sucked the juice from her finger.
“Mmm.”
The server asked if they needed a minute or two, and Beth nodded him away.
“Just put it away. Okay, my dear, sweet sister? Let’s have our tacos and get home, and you can go nuts with that thing.”
“It’s good, Beth. Really good. Tastes like Christmas and summer at the same time. Tastes like childhood.” Daphne pushed herself back from the table, snatching the fruit away from her sister. She dug a nail into its the flesh, scooping out seeds and eating them like roe from a stone spoon. The plump little beads looked like blood clots, reddish-black and purple.
Before Beth could stop her, Daphne pulled a bigger strip of husk away, exposing the full interior of the fruit. The seeds glistened in the fruit’s membrane. They were cells, tissue, organs, all many of bio-waste, juicy and bubbling with dark red nectar. Daphne bit into it, membrane and all, and chewed, her mouth gory, pulp in the corners of her lips and between her teeth.
Beth felt herself falling apart, watched it from outside her body. She watched the tables around them erupt in horror. She watched kitchen staff rush and halt unsure what to do about the frenzied laughing woman gorging on something too red and saturated with mess.
“Call 911,” somebody said. Yelled. Screamed.
The fruit devoured, Daphne only craved more. She hurled out of the restaurant. To the frantic observer, the woman looked like she was shot in the face, or that a dog had bit her mouth, or that she frothed with some sub-equatorial infection.
Beth tried to follow her sister, but the crowd wouldn’t let her. They bombarded her with questions and accusations, threats and promises. At first, she pleaded, tears streaming from her eyes. But only at first. The more the crowd encroached on her, the more she hardened to her regular self.
Beth roared, “Get the fuck out of my way,” shoving a woman with cropped blonde hair into a tall man that collapsed into a booth. She drove her shoulder into another man with a hipster moustache. The last time she had this much physical contact with so many people at one time was two decades ago.
“Move, fuckface,” Beth said to the poor server who attempted to hand her their bill at the door. The December night became starkly cold. The bitterness clawed into her bones. The aroma of fruit was gone, swapped with the obligatory vomit and dope. Her beautiful sister wasn’t there, but she wasn’t gone. She was only lost. The fruit stall was also gone. Leading up to the empty space were drops of fresh blood, or pomegranate juice. Beth knew how this story went.
Want more gripping stories from Thomas C. Mavroudis? Read “From a Trail Cam Pointed at Our House” from Horrific Scribes, June 2025 and “Revelations of a Shadow Person” from Horrific Scribes, December 2025.
| SPECIAL EXHIBIT 1: Return to “The December Booth“ | Conclude Holiday Hurlyburly with the final attraction, “Snow Angel.” |