Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
April 30, 2024
Retirement life offers its share of surprises. Some days, I find myself occupied with household chores; other days, I’m lost in endless scrolling on Facebook and YouTube. Today was one of the latter. I must have spent 12 hours lounging on my couch in my boxers, watching video after video.
Around 4:00 a.m., I heard footsteps descending the stairs. Assuming it was my son, I didn’t look up at first. Then, the sound of a woman clearing her throat made me pause—it seemed she wanted to be noticed. Glancing up, I saw a woman in her early thirties, a man’s tie knotted tightly around her neck. Her eyes, filled with desperation and determination, instantly grabbed my attention. I wondered if this spirit would attempt to attack me, as others have in the past.
Recognizing the signs of a story waiting to be told, I sat up and pulled out my notebook filled with paranormal investigation forms, ready to document her testimony. She took this as her signal to begin and spoke in a scratchy, high-pitched voice.
Our conversations had become so repetitive, I could predict every word before it was said. Each day felt like a rerun of the last—same phrases, same lifeless kisses that barely even registered. We were stuck in this endless loop, going through the motions of a marriage that had long since lost its spark.
“Planning for Christmas shopping?” my husband asked as we sat in a dimly lit restaurant, the clatter of dishes and murmurs of nearby conversations forming a familiar backdrop. His voice lacked genuine interest, as though the question was merely a line in an overused script.
I dipped my fingers into my purse, retrieving my lipstick with a practiced motion. Without making eye contact, I replied, “Trying to beat the holiday rush.”
We rose from our seats in synchronized movements. “Love you,” he said, a phrase that once carried the weight of devotion but now felt as empty as the restaurant on a Tuesday night.
With a heavy heart, I replied, “Love you too,” and we exited the restaurant, his hand slipping into mine out of habit. I drove him back to work, our conversation drifting into silence, broken only by the sound of traffic.
Once he closed the car door behind him, I sped away, driven by an urgency only I could understand. My destination? A small, plain apartment in North Austin. It wasn’t much, but it had become my escape. My boyfriend was everything my husband wasn’t—thoughtful, passionate, and alive in a way I hadn’t felt in years. He made me laugh. He challenged me. He reminded me I could feel something other than numb.
When I walked in, the familiar smell of his cologne hit me first—musky, with just a hint of the old books he loved to read. “Finally,” he said, pulling me into a hug. His voice had this way of grounding me, like nothing else mattered when I was with him.
But something felt off that night. He was holding me, but his grip felt… different. When I pulled back to look at him, his eyes were glossy, like he was about to cry.
“You shouldn’t have ridiculed her,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“Who?” I asked, confused.
Then everything changed. A cold breeze swept through the room, and the shadows on the walls started moving, almost like they had minds of their own. And in the middle of it all, I saw her—a figure standing there, her grin twisted and her eyes empty.
I froze. My boyfriend started chanting in some language I didn’t recognize, his voice shaking as the shadows seemed to respond to him.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice breaking.
His face crumpled. “She requires devotion, and you don’t have it. I don’t have a choice.”
The air in the room grew so hot I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And then, I heard it—the laughter. Low at first, then louder, surrounding me, mocking me. I tried to scream, but my voice got caught in my throat. I knew then there was no way out.
Weeks passed, and my absence remained unexplained. Rumors about my disappearance swirled. My husband and boyfriend eventually found themselves face-to-face in a secluded bar on the outskirts of Austin.
Taking a gulp from his drink, my boyfriend broke the silence. “I didn’t wish for this,” he admitted.
My husband’s response was chilling, devoid of remorse. “It was either her or us.”
“Faith holds strength,” my boyfriend mused, staring at the swirling patterns in his glass. “But doubt can be fatal.”
The woman tugged at the tie around her neck, grimacing as it tightened. Her eyes met mine, and there was something raw in her expression—pain, but also understanding.
“Don’t let this discourage you,” she said, her voice softer now. “Most of us aren’t like that. If you’re a jerk in life, you’re a jerk in death too. That doesn’t change. But the good ones? The ones who were kind and gave a damn? They stay like that too.”
She paused, maybe trying to put into words what she wanted me to understand. “Look, death doesn’t rewrite who we are. It just amplifies it. People who spread kindness and love when they were alive? They keep doing it after. They become the kind of spirits who want to guide, to help. But the ones who were selfish, angry, or cruel? Well, they don’t magically turn into saints just because they’re dead.”
She gestured to the faint shimmer of the portal in the corner of the room. “You’ll meet all kinds. Some of us bring misery, sure. But others? We just want to share whatever joy we can. Every soul has a story, and it’s shaped by the life they lived. So when you meet one of us, don’t just see what’s in front of you. Try to see who we were.”
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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