We saw with the last segments that Bara's life although privileged, also has its discomforts and cruelties, nightmares too. She is beautiful and wealthy, but her sleep is haunted by unknown spectres and dream demons, visited by handsome, dark-haired boys who just also happen to be great kissers. In the waking world, she is bullied and alienated but against the backdrop of the picturesque and charming town of Windfall.

I drew from my Alma Mater campus of the University of British Columbia for inspiration when creating Windfall. Visit UBC and recognize Main Library and its clock tower. The campus' plentiful and ancient trees gift the full splendour of Autumn. I wanted to color the horror of the Wisp with fantastical beauty, to contrast its terror with the ideal, to scare yes ... but also to create a world the reader looks forward to inhabiting.

And what's the world without coffee and colorful neighbors. Our cast of characters expand as Bara takes us on a walking tour through Windfall to arrive at the Tragic Sip Café, its moniker an allusion to my favorite Canadian Band and its frontman, the late Gordon Downie, one of the most gifted poets to ever come out of my country. I honor my inspirations and find more.

I hope this chapter leaves the reader feeling she is a resident of Windfall and with just the right questions: who is this mysterious boy the Goths are so enamored with and who is watching Bara without being seen. What will she find in the library as the reader turns the next page.

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Words and Images are my own.

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