The Ghost of Christmas Past

by Angie Fox

  But at the same time, an uncomfortable realization settled over me. Seeing her just now, alone and abandoned in that home, I’d been happy.

  If it had been someone else—anyone else—I’d have at least felt sorry for them.

  But surely it was a small thing, and I’d caught myself.

  There were more important matters to worry about.

  “What happened to Ellis and me?” The possibility that I wouldn’t be there at his side, that I wasn’t a part of his life, astounded me.

  The ghost’s tone darkened. “You changed.”

  I couldn’t have changed that much. I never imagined the future wouldn’t turn out with us together. I’d never thought that there was anything the two of us couldn’t handle. But even if I’d been left with a broken heart, even if we weren’t meant to be, I wanted the best for him. I wanted him to be a part of something. “He should at least be with his family. Maybe not Virginia, but the rest of them,” I insisted.

  The unfeeling, uncaring shadow of a ghost lifted her head. “Ellis has renounced his family.”

  “He’d never,” I protested. Although after tonight, I could see why he might.

  The ghost gazed down the lonely path. “He broke ties with his parents, and it broke him as well.”

  “I see,” I whispered.

  “Technically, his arguments were in the right,” the ghost mused. “But happiness doesn’t care about technicalities.”

  I followed him to a stop a little ways off the path, right in front of a headstone flanked by two spindly red maple trees. He didn’t speak, but his shoulders shook as he stood in front of a lonely grave.

  Had his father finally worked himself to death?

  I stepped next to him to be with him, even if he couldn’t see me.

  Maybe he could feel me.

  And then I saw the name on the headstone.

  Beauregard Buford Wydell

  Beloved Son and Brother

  Taken From Us Too Soon.

  I couldn’t have been more shocked if lightning had struck me. “No,” I said. “No, this can’t be true.”

  “This is the future,” the ghost said, implacable.

  “Beau is—” Alive, I wanted to say. Full of terrible ideas and even worse art, but a force to be reckoned with, and at least he was trying to find himself. “What happened?” I asked, unable to look away from the cold, impersonal tombstone.

  “Alcohol poisoning.” The ghost’s voice went even deeper. “Ellis gave up on everyone in his family, including his younger brother. Without him, the family fell apart. His brother fell apart.”

  “Surely Ellis doesn’t blame himself,” I said, looking up into his cold, dark eyes.

  He did.

  Of course he did. Ellis saw it as his moral imperative to take care of everyone and everything. It was what made him such a great police officer. It was what made him the wonderful man I knew. And if I had any part in pulling him away from his family… No. I wouldn’t. That would be terrible.

  I watched Ellis drop to one knee and lay the lily on Beau’s grave. His long fingers brushed his brother’s cold, carved name, and the sob he’d been holding inside burst from him. He buried his face in his arms and wept helplessly, and my heart ached with how tight I wanted to hold him, how badly I wanted to set things right.

  “I should be here with him,” I sobbed. “I will. Even if we break up, I’ll come here with him,” I vowed.

  The ghost somehow turned without moving at all, the intensity of her power focused squarely on me. “You weren’t invited. He wouldn’t have taken comfort from the person you became.”

  It hit me like a mallet. “I stopped giving people chances.”

  I mean, Virginia deserved to be put at arm’s length, but somehow I’d also lost all sympathy for Ellis’s mother as a person.

  The ghost loomed between me and Ellis. “You were happy about his mother’s downfall. You became wrong for him.”

  As if she were somehow his protector. “Who are you to tell me that?” I challenged.

  The ghost’s face swirled in a mist beneath the dark hood. “I watch over this family, and I know what they can be.”

  “So do I.” I’d seen it tonight, both the good and the bad. I’d seen it in myself and in them. Yes, Virginia needed to be put in her place—and probably would again even after tonight. I was done taking her abuse lying down. But that wasn’t the end of it. “I have to find a way to stand strong and also be a part of Ellis’s life and family,” I realized.

  The ghost stared me down.

  “I also have to put a check on my own pride.” It was one thing to not put up with Virginia, but to hate her or wish ill on her—it had begun to harm me as a person. I was raised better than that. “I’ve helped ghosts come together. I’ve helped the living. Now I just need to do that for myself and the Wydells.”

  “It’s too late,” the ghost stated, as if I had no choice in the matter, as if the future were out of my hands entirely.

  “You showed me a vision,” I said. “But I control the future.”

  The ghost gazed back to Ellis bent over the grave. It might be the spirit of the family, a guardian or a long-lost ancestor, but I was a girl with a knack for shaking things up.

  There was no way I could sit back and let anything bad happen to Ellis, to Beau, to his entire family. Not when I could do something about it. That didn’t have to mean bending to Virginia. And it also didn’t mean changing who I was. It just meant I had to conjure up a little holiday miracle using my own personal brand of magic.

  I clenched my hands into fists and stared right into the dark oval where the ghost’s face wasn’t. “I can change it, and I will.”

  12

  I barely felt the ghostly whirlwind that delivered me back to the cider mill. I was filled with purpose, and I couldn’t stop thinking about what I could do, who I could be.

  When my stinging eyes adjusted, I found myself surrounded by rotting apples, rumbling bears, and a rescue that was about to go very, very wrong.

  “Verity,” Frankie called. “Now! You’ve got to get the pulley out of the way now.” The rope had dwindled to a thread and I could hear his naked fear. “Don’t make me watch them die.”

  “Never,” I vowed. “You,” I said to the faceless ghost of Christmas future. “Thank you. You’ve helped me more than I could ever have imagined. More than I probably realize.” I’d dwell later. “Now do you think you can handle a quick rescue operation in the real world?”

  The ghost’s faceless visage swirled under her hood. “I keep my promises.”

  Good. I gestured at the hook and pulley, whose rotation was gaining speed as the last strands of rope feathered away. “We need to move that machinery away from the hole in the floor.”

  “Step back,” the ghost murmured, her gaze locked on the shaking pulley. And then she began to spin. As she did, she grew smaller. The gray of her cloak folded in on itself, tighter and tighter until she looked like a dense thunderhead, crackling with energy.

  “Holy smokes,” Hale whistled.

  “Told you she was powerful,” Phineas said, drawing closer to Hale.

  The gray swirling ghost flowed over the pulley and hook and, instead of pushing on them, she completely encompassed them. She inched toward us, and slowly, surely, the hook moved with her.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Frankie demanded from the hole.

  I didn’t know. But she was on our side.

  Belatedly I realized that I needed to get out of the way. Pronto. I stepped back until I was almost up against the door. All the hairs on my arms stood up on end, responding to the static charge in the air. I’d never felt a ghost do this before. I’d felt them cold and creepy, numbing and terrifying, but I’d never felt something so raw and elemental.

  The hook and pulley inched my way.

  “Just a few feet more,” I pleaded, as if wanting could make it so. The hook and pulley were still over the hole. Their combined weight had to be hundreds of poun
ds. The ghost appeared to be slowing down.

  “Oh!” The strands making up the remnants of the rope began to unravel so fast they appeared to evaporate. Moving the pulley was one thing. Supporting that massive weight once the rope was completely gone was something else. But I couldn’t launch myself over the hole. I couldn’t catch it. “Help her!”

  With a curse, Hale surged forward, joining the lightning ball and coalescing around the rope.

  Phineas rushed in behind him. I heard him cry out before melding into the energy storm.

  The fraying slowed, but didn’t stop, and the hook still had two more feet to go before it reached the questionably solid ground of the upper floor.

  “Frankie!” I gasped.

  “I see it!” he hollered.

  I pointed at the mass of ghosts. “We need you!”

  “I don’t know those people,” he pleaded. “I’m not merging energy with them!”

  “Frankie, please,” I implored. “Do it for the bears.”

  He rose out of the hole, his mouth working but no words coming out. He looked down at the cubs and clenched his jaw. “Hold on, kiddos!” He rose and allowed himself to be sucked into the mass of swirling ghosts.

  It surged and spun, swallowing him whole.

  The hook and pulley crept closer to the floor at the edge of the hole…closer…closer…

  But it didn’t make a difference.

  The rope snapped with the hook still at least a foot from safety. I gasped as the whole thing started to fall. We were too late!

  I braced for impact, for tragedy, when suddenly, the hook and pulley caught in midair.

  The cloud of energy blazed red underneath it, and with a sound like a screaming swarm of bees, the entire contraption spun sideways and shot straight for me, landing with a thud on the wooden floor less than a foot away. Broken bits of wood skittered to land at my toes.

  The boards groaned under my feet, but they held.

  I stared, too shocked to utter a word.

  The red cloud dissipated with a whoosh and a release of pressure, and three groggy ghosts—only three—materialized in front of me. A breathless Phineas, a bent-over Officer Hale, and Frankie, who collapsed straight through the floor.

  “Frankie?” I rushed over to the hole and located him lying on the ground not far from the mama bear, among the discarded apples and debris. The three babies rushed to him, and he didn’t even bother to move as they greeted him, dancing through his chest and face.

  “You tykes okay?” he muttered, raising a weak hand to his forehead. They tried to nuzzle him in answer, and he grinned.

  He was going to have quite the heroic tale to tell Molly. And if he didn’t brag on himself, I would.

  I turned to Phineas and Hale. “How are you two doing?”

  “I hadn’t been planning on my own adventure tonight,” Phineas said, double-checking to see if he was still in one piece. He was. “I was certain that I would be completely drained of energy after such an immense task, but…”

  “She took the brunt of it,” Officer Hale said, straightening, cracking his back as he searched for the powerful ghost who had helped us all tonight. But she was nowhere to be found. “I don’t know who she used to be when she was alive, but I think I would have been scared of her.”

  “She certainly got her way,” I said. She’d broken through to me. She’d made me realize the part I had to play in Ellis’s family, should I choose to adjust my attitude. And she’d helped us too. Donna would be happy to know the animals were safe. “Thank you, guys,” I said to Phineas and Hale. “I’m glad I saw what I saw, even though some of it scared the bejeebers out of me.”

  “The question is, what will you do now, Miss Long?” Phineas asked.

  “I’m going to make it better.” I wouldn’t apologize. I wouldn’t backtrack. But I would blaze a new path for myself and for the family. “I’m going to figure out how to bring the Wydells together as a real family for Christmas.”

  Phineas smiled broadly. “That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say.” The door behind him opened with a slow creak, startling me. “It was all I needed to hear. I have been pleased beyond all measure by your company tonight, Miss Long, and even more impressed with your determination.”

  “Not like you gave her much of a choice,” Frankie muttered. The gangster rose through the floor as Phineas faded away. “Can we at least visit those kiddos from time to time?” he asked, taking one last look at the bears.

  “We can,” I promised. Although I’d most likely stay in the car.

  I turned to Hale. “It was so good to see you.”

  “Merry Christmas, Verity,” he said as he began to disappear as well.

  “I’ll see you at the Christmas party later?” I called after him.

  “Not without Frankie’s power,” he teased, and then he was gone.

  Did that mean the extended Wydell family hadn’t left Montgomery’s home yet? I hoped so. It would make what I needed to do a lot easier to have more people than just Ellis, Beau, and Virginia around.

  I checked my watch. “Twenty minutes until Molly arrives.”

  “We’d better book it,” Frankie agreed.

  He headed through the wall out toward the car, and I used the door, formulating a plan along the way.

  I needed to remind the Wydells what Christmas was all about: family, friends, love, and acceptance. I needed to remind them that they were better together than apart, that the family could evolve in different directions but keep a strong foundation. I needed to give them something tangible to hold onto, to talk about and enjoy together.

  Actually, I had just the thing.

  13

  We returned home and I straightened Frankie’s icicle lights.

  “The aspic salad still looks good,” he called from inside his shed, as if his masterpiece would somehow fall apart without him.

  “I’m so happy for you,” I told him, stepping back. His lights looked gorgeous. And Molly would be thrilled to see him, no matter what he served. “Merry Christmas,” I called, heading into the house.

  “Hey,” Frankie called after me, leaning his head out the door. “Merry Christmas to you too, kid.”

  If I hadn’t believed in miracles before, I did now.

  I dashed for the house. No sense wasting time. Not when I had a little work to do before heading to what remained of the Wydells’ party.

  Lucy was thrilled when I walked in the door. She’d been sleeping—the right side of her fur was mushed up from curling into the blankets on my futon. I picked her up and stroked her.

  “We did it, sweetie,” I said, burying my nose in her soft fur. “We did good.” And we were going to do even better.

  My pickle appetizer sat on the mantel where I’d forgotten it. Ruined. But that was all right. It took about ten minutes to prep a replacement dish for the party and twenty minutes to bake it, which gave me enough time to head upstairs and rinse away the dirt and cobwebs from my hair. I slipped on black ballet flats and picked out a dress I loved, a simple sleeveless holly-green shift that was both cute and comfortable. I applied a glossy coat of pale pink lip gloss, settled my grandmother’s filigree cross right above my heart, and smiled at my reflection.

  There you are.

  My cast-iron pan was piping hot when I took it out of the oven, so I added a pair of elbow-length oven mitts to my ensemble. I loaded up a basket with some holiday essentials and tucked it onto the passenger seat, with the pie on the floor, then steered down the drive toward the property I’d left not too long ago.

  Only when I stood in front of Montgomery Wydell’s front door did I stop to wonder if this was a good idea.

  Time to find out. I placed the basket at my feet, adjusted the warm pan in my hands, and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet, spicy scent of my last-minute dessert. Then I knocked on the door with my elbow.

  No one answered.

  It was fairly quiet inside, and the lace curtains over the windows obscured my view, but there we
re still plenty of cars parked in front of the house. Surely someone had to hear me. Maybe they were just stunned into immobility by the idea that anyone would willingly walk in there right now.

  Well, I was ready to be part of the Wydell family Christmas, and I wasn’t going away. I would stand and knock on that door until someone opened it up or until Christmas Day, whichever came first.

  I was only one person, and far from universally liked at that, but I was going to do my darnedest to remind the Wydells what they were to each other, what they should be. What they had been. I straightened my back and prepared to knock on the door with my knee if I had to, but the door swung open just before I attempted that particular balancing act.

  Ellis stood framed by the warm light of the sitting room, his eyes wide as he stared at me. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so surprised. “You came!” He sounded immensely gratified, and if the way he was eyeing my dress was any indicator, I’d pretty much knocked his socks off. I smiled at him, and he stepped forward and tilted my chin up for a kiss. His mouth tasted like honey bourbon and hot chocolate, and I almost forgot the dish I was holding.

  “Merry Christmas,” I murmured to him after we parted a little.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too. Look, I’m so sorry for earlier,” he began, but I cut that off with a shake of my head.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ve done some thinking.”

  “Oh no,” he said, as if any thinking when it came to his family was a very bad idea indeed.

  “It’s good,” I assured him. It was for us, at least. “Is everyone still here?” I asked as he retrieved my basket from the porch and escorted me inside.

  “They are,” he said, leading me into the party.

  Beau was the first to recognize me. He shot up from the loveseat, and it took me a moment to shake off the déjà vu. The scene appeared exactly like I remembered it from the vision with Officer Hale.

  “Good to see you.” Beau walked to me, a champagne glass held loosely in one hand. “Ellis said you weren’t going to make it.”