Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Lost Souls
December 27, 2023
I’ve been spending my nights in the living room again, leaving the kitchen light on. The glow it casts creates just enough of a silhouette in the far corner for any nocturnal visitors to step forward. As I fought off sleep tonight, I saw the shadows begin to move, a clear sign that someone—or something—had arrived.
Out of the portal stepped a young woman who looked like she could still be in high school. This time, I tried something different: instead of watching in silence, I sat up and waved her over, inviting her to sit beside me. She glanced back at the dark corner, looking unsure. Then she stayed where she was, launching right into her account. Her words came out tense and fast, and I worried her raised voice might wake everyone in the house—or even the neighborhood.
This is her story:
High school graduation was just around the corner, and my friends and I decided to have one last slumber party. It was at my best friend’s house—a creaky old place filled with dust and faded memories. We stayed up late, talking about crushes, dreams, and our uncertain futures. Then, the conversation shifted. My best friend brought up the ghost everyone in South Austin seemed to know about.
“Do you believe in Candle Face?” she asked softly, her voice cutting through the lighthearted chatter.
I laughed, breaking the tension with a firm, “Of course not.”
The other girls gasped. Their faces turned serious as they warned me, “You have to believe. Disbelievers become her prey.”
I shrugged it off, completely certain in my disbelief. “I just don’t believe,” I said, as if it were the final word on the matter.
My best friend leaned forward, her expression calm. “Let’s summon her,” she suggested. “Let her see the truth, and maybe she’ll spare you.”
That night, my friends gathered around a flickering candle. They chanted strange words, their voices low and rhythmic. I stood off to the side, watching them with amusement and disbelief. The whole thing felt ridiculous, like a poorly rehearsed play.
When nothing happened, I laughed again. “Where’s your Candle Face now?” I taunted, the sound ringing out louder than I intended.
Days later, I vanished. The search parties—led by those same friends—called my name into the air, but they would never find me. My body lay submerged, eyes fixed on the murky depths. And with my dying breaths, Candle Face revealed the truth.
Her face flickered like flames. “Your friends sacrificed you to me,” she said. “They betrayed you to secure their own futures.”
The betrayal burned more than the pain of dying. “Grant them my last wish,” I said, “I want them to have a life of guilt and suffering.”
Candle Face tilted her head, a cruel smile playing across her molten lips. “I like the way you think,” she replied.
And so, my wish became their curse. Over the years, I watched as their vibrant faces withered under the weight of guilt. Their lives, once filled with promise, became a constant struggle against the chains of their betrayal.
Desperate to break free, they gathered again in that same house, summoning my spirit to beg for forgiveness. But I stayed silent. Instead, Candle Face appeared.
“You betrayed your friend,” she told them, her voice sharp. “And for that, you are bound to her curse. You will suffer until death finally takes you.”
My best friend pleaded, “We believe in you. Please, let us go.”
Candle Face’s anger flared. “Yes, you believe. But your betrayal was not for me—it was for yourselves. You sacrificed your friend to save your own lives. For that, there is no mercy.”
And so, they remain trapped in their torment, their cries unanswered, their suffering eternal.
Personal Note to My Readers
During her visit, the spirit showed almost no trace of fear. She was driven by a fierce determination to share her account, radiating anger and resentment toward the friends who betrayed her. Candle Face seemed to admire her final wish, embracing the curse she placed on those who wronged her.
I get the sense this spirit feels more at home in Candle Face’s lair than she ever did in life. Her bond with Candle Face appears strong, as though their shared sense of betrayal has connected them in ways I don’t yet fully understand.
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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