Subjects of Interest:
Candle Face Chronicles
The Fugitives (Escaped Lost Souls)
The Lost Souls
Apr 9, 2025
It’s been a while since my last entry—since February 23, to be exact. I didn’t mean to go quiet, especially not with everything that’s at stake, but I needed to shift focus. Not away from the mission—never that—but toward building something that could actually support it.
Since my last update, I’ve been compiling Mr. Smoe’s notes, going through what he left behind. That included boxes of scrolls I found in his attic, each one holding the voice of someone who was erased. I also made a major decision during that time. I merged my two websites, Branching Plot Books and Candle Face Chronicles, into one home at www.branchingplotbooks.com. I had originally separated them to keep my traditional writing projects apart from the Candle Face Chronicles, which felt darker, messier, and more personal. But the longer this has gone on, the more I’ve realized they were never truly separate. The work I’ve done through Branching Plot Books—the stories, the books, and the interactive experiences—was always about letting readers shape the story. Candle Face Chronicles may have started as something eviler and more personal, but in the end, it asks the same thing: for people to look closer, to interpret what they’re seeing, and to decide for themselves what’s real. So I brought it all together, hoping it would give the mission a stronger foundation. The site is live now. Everything I’ve written and everything Candle Face has forced into motion is there.
One drawback to moving the journal is that I lost all the previous blog comments and read counts. That stings a little. But it felt like the right move, even if it meant starting over.
But while I was working behind the scenes, something changed.
The lost souls stopped visiting me.
I don’t know why for sure, but I think the Master Shadow may have stopped them, because they were distracting him while the Fugitives escaped. I can only imagine the pain and torture they’re enduring right now in Candle Face’s lair. Whatever the reason, their silence forced me to listen to someone else: the Fugitives.
These 31 escaped lost souls managed to flee Candle Face’s lair. I’ve written about them before. I said I had to act fast to protect them. I said I would scatter them across the country to make them nearly impossible to find. And I meant it. But I couldn’t send them off blindly. Not to just anyone.
These souls are still being hunted. The Master Shadow knows they’re out there, but because their energy is contained in the scrolls, he’ll likely never find them. So I’ve been searching, not for readers, not for followers, but for Guardians. People who understand the risk. People willing to step into a role of paranormal protection. People who will protect these souls by sharing their voices, asking questions, and keeping their stories alive until we can figure out a permanent way to set them free.
Now that the foundation is in place, books published, stories told, the website built—it’s time to move.
I’m calling on the Guardians.
If you think you’re one of them, reach out. But understand this: taking in a Fugitive isn’t a collectible. It’s not a game. It’s not paranormal entertainment. It’s a commitment. These souls need protection, and they’re trusting me to find the right people. If you’re reading this, and you feel like this message was meant for you—it probably was.
If you're serious about becoming a Guardian, read the next journal entry. It’s not just about protecting a scroll. It’s about what happens next.
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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