New Year story and bonus Christmas story

From Substack, January 5, 2026

Happy 2026! I wrote a New Year story to share with you all, set in the world of my cozy fantasy novel (soon to be in the editing stage before submissions).

I also had a holiday story called “Forest Creatures” published online on Christmas Day. It’s not a spicy tale per se, but it shares a venue with several and I read it previously at a Kinky Storytelling event, so take that as you will when it comes to readership. “Join us for a Christmas walk through the forest in this enchanting sapphic winter tale by Melanie Bell.” Here it is!

And here’s my New Year story for you to enjoy.

New Year, New Ewe

It was New Year’s Eve. Tim wandered around Brighton alone. Through the Laines, around back alleys, walking blindly. By the time he realized that nothing around him looked familiar, he felt it was too late to get his bearings. The shops looked interesting. Might as well poke around.

Healthy Habits, read a sign over a bright blue door. A peek through the windows revealed the usual rows of vitamins and supplements, along with an odd mishmash of fitness equipment, food, and who knows what. A stupid, hopeful voice in his head piped up: Maybe something in here will help me be less of a failure. Half listening to it, he stepped inside.

An old-fashioned bell rang at his arrival. A shiny red bicycle greeted him. Maybe he’d get into cycling in the new year. Or maybe not. He eyed the dumbbells – he already had some at home, and used them intermittently. He shook his head at the green smoothies and fruit-and-nut energy balls in the fridge. He knew from experience that they tasted like grass. Kaley had loved those sorts of things. But Kaley had left him.

“New year, new you,” he mumbled under his breath. “As if anyone gets a ‘new you’.”

“What’s that, love?” An elderly woman approached him, wearing a name badge. She moved more spryly than he’d expect of someone her age – in fact, she practically floated. Adults can’t float, Tim reminded himself. Then he realized how stupid that thought was. Children couldn’t float either, even if he’d imagined he could while playing Superman.

“Nothing.” Tim’s cheeks colored. He hadn’t expected anyone to hear him.

“You wait right here,” said the grey-haired, round-cheeked woman, departing soundlessly. How? She must be into all sorts of crazy fitness things, if she ran this shop.

As Tim browsed a shelf of vitamins, undecided on whether he needed any, the woman reappeared, holding a leash attached to a large and fluffy…

Dog? That wasn’t a dog. It was round, wooly, and white mixed with dove grey. Its tail was short, its ears pointed. “Baaa,” it said.

“You have a pet sheep?!” exclaimed Tim in delight. “Or is it a shop sheep? I like the sound of that – shop sheep!”

“You said you wanted a new ewe,” the shopkeeper grinned, “and Eunice here is looking for a home.”

Or maybe it was Ewe-nice? She didn’t spell it out.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” said Tim as a chill crept down his spine. This situation was getting surreal.

“Do you have a garden?” the woman asked.

“Well… yes…” Tim had kept the house when Kaley left. He’d bought her half, leaving him with all the space and her with all the money. Now she was able to travel, like she’d always wanted. He saw her pictures on social media, of faraway cities and beaches, while he sat in the same old city by the same old beach.

“I married you because I was supposed to,” she’d told him at last. “Not because I ever wanted…”

“You never wanted to be here,” said Tim. She didn’t disagree.

“Then it’s all sorted,” the strange shopkeeper was saying in the present, and Tim had a terrifying feeling that he’d missed some important context while lost in his memories. “Here are her winter supplements.” He heaved a burlap bag at Tim, which he lifted tentatively, surprised to find it lighter than expected. Some sort of grain? He supposed she would also eat his…grass?

“And this is for her bedding.” She heaved a second sack his way.

This was madness. He didn’t want a sheep!

“Baaa,” said Eunice, her nose moving closer to the burlap bag. He pulled it out of the way.

“How much is she?” he asked.

“Forty-nine kilograms,” said the shopkeeper. “Very healthy.”

“No, I mean, how much does she cost?” That eerie feeling strengthened again. Tim’s skin was full of goosepimples. Had there been a person in front of him? Had they disappeared?

So Tim found himself walking home with two sacks over his shoulders and a sheep on a leash. Once outside the Healthy Habits shop, he recognized a nearby street and recovered his bearings. Eunice trotted obediently along after him. He supposed he would need to build her a fence so she didn’t run off. And did she need a barn or something? Well, he had some space in the garage…

As he strolled homeward, passersby approached to comment. “Is that your sheep?” “What’s her name?” “Can I pet her?” A pair of small children reached out to touch Eunice while their father watched nervously.

“So, Eunice,” said Tim once they arrived at his place, “I guess this is your new home. Why don’t I set up a place in the garage for you while I figure out if I need to build a fence in the yard or what.”

Kaley used to keep a work bench in the spot where Tim set down straw bedding. He put some grain in a bucket and filled a salad bowl with water. As Eunice ate and drank with the garage door safely closed behind her, Tim frantically searched online for information.

He called his friend Billy, who worked as a contractor, to put together the fence and shelter the internet said a sheep needed. “A shopkeeper gave you a what?” exclaimed Billy over the phone. He drove over as fast as he could. Eunice ran over to greet Billy as soon as he got out of the car, acting as if he had treats. He did.

“Hello, cutie.” Billy scratched behind Eunice’s ears. He looked up at Tim. “Are you sure you’re up for taking care of her?”

“I… suppose,” Tim grumbled.

“Well, new year, new ewe, innit?” Billy chuckled. He got to work on the fence.

Everybody loved Eunice. Tim was almost jealous.

On New Year’s Day, he did his usual video call with his parents. He thought of it as a duty, a depressing affair since Kaley’s departure without producing grandkids and his own persistent singleness, which bothered him more in the abstract sense – the feelings of failure, the hit to his status – than it did in the concrete, day-to-day sense of not having someone around.

This time, though, he had something to talk about. He turned his phone camera on the sheep.

“Isn’t she precious?” Tim’s parents explained. They were so distracted by her “fuzzy little ears” that they neglected to ask their usual probing questions.

Still, Tim let out a sigh of relief when the call was done. He turned to Eunice and patted her nose. For the first time in two years, he wasn’t alone for the new year.

That week, he had a date lined up with someone he’d matched with on an app. “I have great expectations for this one,” he proclaimed to Eunice as he filled her water bowl. “Oh, who am I kidding? I don’t.”

But when Fatima the accountant asked about his hobbies as they sat and sipped their coffee, Tim finally had something to say. He showed pictures of Eunice on his phone and got Fatima laughing when he shared the story of how she’d almost knocked him down as he brought her food. She even ordered a second coffee.

We may or may not be a fit, thought Tim at the end of the date, but she seemed happy to be there, in a way Kaley never did. Did I know how to recognize unhappiness when I saw it?

And there he was, thinking about his failure again. It had stayed out of focus for the whole date, when usually, when meeting women, that was all he could think about.

He rushed back home and checked on Eunice in her enclosure. That was his routine now, apart from work. Feed the sheep, water the sheep, check on the sheep. He had nightmares sometimes where something terrible happened to Eunice and it was his fault.

But now… had it?

She lay upside down on the grass, legs in the air. Tim hurried over. Her head was stretched out to the side. Maybe she was just sleeping? Did sheep sleep like that?

His phone told him a dire story: she may have rolled over, but sheep on their backs are stuck. They can’t get up by themselves; their stomach gets bloated, and they’ll die. How long had she been like this?

Tim had never rolled over a sheep before, nor imagined he’d have to. Nervously, he opened the fence and approached her. Eunice gave a pathetic bleat. Her belly looked puffy, her legs cartoonish.

Tim set his phone in the grass and tried to follow the diagram he’d found, placing his arms around Eunice’s shoulders and heaving her up. She was bulky and heavy. Sweat rolled down his back. But Eunice gave little resistance. After some awkward pulling and lugging, hands deep in her thick grey-white wool, he got the sheep right way up.

She wobbled at first, like a drunk. Her legs bowed. Tim worried there was something wrong with her, that he’d come home too late. But after a few staggering steps, she seemed back to normal.

Tim grabbed extra feed for her. “You could have died,” he said.

She was alright now. But what about tomorrow?

He checked on Eunice first thing in the morning and was relieved to see her standing upright. She ran toward him in greeting. “Baaa!”

“Baaa to you, too,” he said, scratching her chin. And wondering. And worrying. Had Billy been right? Was he not up to taking care of a sheep?

Did he even want to take care of a sheep?

There were so many steps he had to do that he hadn’t done yet. Registration. Veterinary care. Getting more food. Learning how to care for an animal from real live people, not his phone.

Eunice was loveable, but he hadn’t chosen her. He’d taken this sheep home in a sort of fever dream – perhaps because he was too polite to refuse.

Maybe that was how Kaley had felt about him.

But where else could Eunice go?

Every spare moment of that day, he looked for answers. He found a number of sanctuaries and rescues in the region, and began making phone calls. “I was given a sheep who needs a home,” he explained, “but I don’t think my garden is the right one for her.”

One sanctuary seemed especially welcoming and thorough. So Tim and Billy loaded Eunice in Billy’s truck and took a trip out to the countryside.

A black-and-white farmhouse sat surrounded by rolling green hills and tumbling fields where animals grazed. Horses nuzzled each other, cows chewed their cud, ducks milled about a pond, and a herd of sheep in many colors faced the road as their truck approached.

“Hello,” said a man in overalls and work boots as they approached. “I’m Michael, owner of the sanctuary.”

And he and Tim were shaking hands before Tim had realized he’d moved. Had he walked up, or had he floated?

“Let’s have a look at Eunice, shall we?”

Michael and Eunice took to each other right away, and the more Tim saw of the farm, the more he liked it. He knew the sheep would be safe and happy here, among a friendly herd.

Even if part of him would miss her.

“Do you take visitors?” he asked. “Or volunteers?”

So, to Billy’s amusement, Tim began spending every other Saturday at an animal sanctuary, tending to cows, chickens, and donkeys. He may not have had his own kids, but he looked after plenty – of the goat kind. He made new friends among the volunteers. And he always gave Eunice a fond scratch.

Then he drove home and rested, content in his own company.