Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
January 23, 2024
It’s been two weeks since my last nocturnal visitor. I was starting to think they’d all given up on me, assuming I couldn’t help. I’ve tried, though—I’ve reached out to a long list of supposed paranormal “experts,” from investigators to mediums and psychics, and I’ve even shared the spirits’ testimonies on a podcast. But so far, no one has stepped forward in a meaningful way.
Then, last night, while I was in the kitchen making a snack, I heard the sunroom door creak open. My first thought was an intruder, and I braced myself. But when I turned, it wasn’t a thief—it was another lost soul, another victim of Candle Face.
He was a middle-aged man, drenched from head to toe, who stayed mostly in the shadows as he approached me. For some reason, I felt relief. After two weeks of silence, his appearance felt like a sign that I hadn’t been forgotten. Without any prompting, he began to share his story.
It was a warm night, and I was stumbling home from a party, my steps unsteady but my mind still sharp enough to find humor in the ghost stories we’d been laughing about all evening. The one about a young ghost girl? Ridiculous.
I was too caught up in my own amusement to notice when the streetlights began to dim, one by one.
“Believe in some kid ghost?” I scoffed into the night, my voice louder than it needed to be. “It’s all just a bunch of BS.”
And then she appeared. She stepped out of the treeline on the northern side of Longhorn Dam, her presence so sudden it felt like the night itself had conjured her from my disbelief.
“You do not believe,” she said, her voice calm.
I tried to laugh it off, but my voice wavered. “This can’t be real,” I said, fear creeping into my tone.
“All is real if you believe,” she replied. Her words carried a weight that was impossible to ignore.
I wanted to run, but my legs felt heavy, as though the night itself was holding me in place. The water’s edge was just a few steps away, its surface shimmering faintly under the dim light.
“Why me?” I asked, my voice trembling now.
She tilted her head, her hollow eyes meeting mine. “Because you laughed at me. You mocked what you did not understand. And for that, you will become part of my story.”
Her small hand reached out and gripped my arm. Her touch was firm, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. She began pulling me toward the water’s edge.
“You will not be forgotten,” she said. But her words weren’t comforting.
Before I could fully grasp what was happening, I was submerged. The water closed over my head, cold and suffocating. Her laughter echoed all around me.
As the water filled my lungs, I understood the power of Candle Face’s story and my own place in it.
When he finished, he thanked me for listening. Then, just as quietly as he had arrived, he made his way back through the sunroom door and disappeared into the night.
There was something strange about him, though. He kept coughing throughout his story, and every time he did, water streamed from his mouth. It was hard to watch—he looked like he was in pain, grimacing with each word.
Seeing how soaked he was made me wonder if it was truly rain. The steady flow of water pouring from his mouth—clearly more than any rain could account for—felt like a clue, a reflection of how Candle Face had taken him. It was as though the water itself was part of his death, a symbol of his final moments.
Is Candle Face real?
This is a complex and deeply personal question. On the one hand, there's the possibility that Candle Face is a manifestation of my childhood trauma, a figure created by my mind to cope with fear and emotional turmoil. On the other hand, the consistent details, physical evidence, and shared experiences with others suggest that Candle Face may be a genuine supernatural entity. Whether Candle Face is real or a creation of my psyche, her impact on my life has been undeniably profound. Ultimately, the answer to this question is up to you.
How are you able to communicate with the dead? Are you a psychic or medium?
I don’t consider myself a psychic or medium, although many in the paranormal community believe I have some kind of gift, perhaps one that I haven’t fully tapped into yet. Unlike those who claim to communicate with any spirit, my ability seems limited to connecting with Candle Face’s victims and Candle Face herself. While I’m not sure how this works, the connection is strong and focused on these particular Lost Souls, allowing me to share their stories and seek justice for them.
Do you use AI to create your content?
From October 2023 to around March 2024, I personally wrote the short descriptions you see on Google and social media platforms when my web pages or journal entries are shared or found in search results. These descriptions are those brief, 160-character summaries that pop up beside the URL. It was challenging to condense complex ideas into such a small space.
By March 2024, I began letting Wix, my website host, handle this task for me. Their AI generates these summaries much faster and often with more precision than I could manage within that tight character limit. It was a practical decision to let the system take over this small aspect of my work, allowing me to focus more on my writing and investigations.
The web pages and journal entries themselves are entirely my own. My writing encompasses a wide range of topics, including the testimonies of the Lost Souls, my investigations into Candle Face/Isabel, my books like Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook, as well as other works and research. Everything I write is rooted in my decades of experience in writing (over ten books in 15 years) and my 30+ years of expertise in intelligence analysis, missing persons cases, and human trafficking investigations. The core content you read always comes from me.
By early March 2025, I decided to create a Shopify account to sell copies of Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona, The Haunted Handbook, and to look for caretakers for The Scrolls of Souls. It was a tremendous amount of work to manually transfer all 130 journal entries from Wix to Shopify and recreate the Google SEO titles and descriptions for each entry. Shopify’s blogging platform also required a summary for each journal entry. Summarizing my work was taking around 30 minutes per entry, which became overwhelming and unsustainable.
To streamline the process, I allowed AI to create the summaries for me by uploading each journal entry and letting the AI generate the SEO descriptions, summaries, and ALT text for images. Here's a clear breakdown of what is AI-generated:
- Some journal entry titles.
- Nearly all SEO journal descriptions (up to 160 characters).
- Nearly all summaries (which are only available in the backend and not visible to the public).
Everything else you read comes from me, whether it’s documenting testimonies from the Lost Souls, researching Candle Face/Isabel, or writing my books. The AI simply handles the tedious, mechanical parts of the process, leaving the writing, storytelling, and investigations entirely in my hands.
I review all AI-generated summaries and descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the essence of my writing. My decision to use AI for these backend tasks is about maintaining efficiency and allowing me to focus on what truly matters: writing, storytelling, investigations, and giving voice to the Lost Souls, protecting the Fugitives, investigating Candle Face/Isabel, and exploring new projects. Your experience as a reader is shaped by my work, not by AI.
Why did you end the podcast?
I decided to cancel the Candle Face Chronicles Podcast for two key reasons. First, while the Get Haunted Network is a fantastic community for paranormal entertainment, it wasn't the right fit for the serious and important nature of my work with Candle Face Chronicles. The network's lighthearted tone didn’t align with my mission.
Second, the friends and family of one of Candle Face's victims reached out and asked me to stop discussing their loved one on the podcast because it was causing them too much pain. Their request made me realize that my work, while well-intentioned, was unintentionally hurting those who are still living and grieving.
These reasons led me to end the podcast, but I remain committed to continuing my mission to uncover Candle Face’s origins and methods with a renewed focus on compassion and respect for the living.
Why did you stop using www.candleface.com and start using www.branchingplotbooks.com?
I have had the branchingplotbooks.com domain since 2012, but I transferred the domain to Shopify to use it as my storefront. I needed to do this because Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona can't be published or sold via Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing because of its spiral binding requirement. The same goes for The Haunted Handbook.
I decided to sell them, along with most of my other books, on Shopify because it allows me to provide a more streamlined and reliable experience for my readers. It also enables me to have full control over my work and how it reaches my audience. Additionally, all my books are still available on Amazon (paperback and Kindle), except for Isabel: The Forgotten Daughter of La Llorona and The Haunted Handbook due to their unique binding requirements.
I also chose to use Shopify’s blogging platform, keeping all books, my journal, and the shopping experience located in one place.
I plan on keeping www.candleface.com up for the interim, but it will likely go down as well, or at least be redirected to www.branchingplotbooks.com. In the end, I want my work to be more streamlined and easier for the paranormal community and my readers to find my work, read and help the lost souls, protect the fugitives, and care for the Scrolls of Souls.
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