The Spirits of Christmas

by Sarah Wynde

  Stay with us? Akira wanted to protest. Their house wasn’t childproof. They had no toys. Where would he sleep? What would he eat? How would they take care of him? But her brows drew down and she stayed silent as she glanced at Hannah.

  She tried not to let ghosts bully her, but it might not be a bad idea to let the old woman feel an empty house again. Maybe the silence would remind her that company wasn’t so bad. And Akira wanted a chance to talk to Rose in private, away from the older woman, about that golden energy and what it might mean.

  “Go and good riddance.” Hannah grumped, stomping away from Toby and Zane toward the kitchen.

  “Come on, bud. Let’s go get your stuff together.” Zane held his hand out to Toby and the little boy stood and slid his own into it obligingly.

  “Can we bring da trains?” Toby asked.

  “Sure. We’ll pack up some of the track, too, and maybe even that little barrel house so we can load ‘em up.”

  “Dat is de barra’ yoader,” Toby corrected him.

  Zane blinked. “Barrel loader. Got it. Not a house.” He grinned at the little boy.

  Toby had taken to Zane like peanut butter to jelly, Akira thought. All right, she could do this. They could do this. As long as Zane was around, they’d be fine.

  An hour later, she was not so sanguine. “What do you mean you need to run an errand and it might take a while?”

  Zane ran his hand though his hair, looking guilty. “Ah, well . . .”

  “You can’t leave me alone with him,” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder at Toby pushing his train along their coffee table. “I don’t know anything about taking care of a child. I fed him ice cream for breakfast!”

  Zane looked startled for a second before laughing. He slid his hand around her waist to the small of her back. “Did you have some, too?”

  “Of course not.” She put her arms up and around his neck and leaned into him, letting herself relax against his warmth, tucking her cheek into his shoulder. “Who eats ice cream for breakfast?”

  He chuckled and she felt his breath stirring her ear as he whispered, “There’s a box of chocolates under the Christmas tree for Grace. You can feed him those for lunch if you like.”

  She snorted in protest, not lifting her head. Not likely.

  “Seriously, though, I have to go,” he continued.

  At that she did pull her head away, looking up into his eyes. “Where? And why?” She wanted to clutch his arms and refuse to let him leave, but she didn’t.

  He hemmed and hawed and finally said, “It’s almost Christmas.”

  “I know that.”

  “I need to go get something. A present.”

  “No, you don’t.” She shook her head fervently. “No. There is no present more important than being here right now.”

  “It’ll be a good present,” Zane tried.

  “No,” she repeated. “No. No. No.”

  As the door closed behind him, she resisted the urge to kick it. What was she supposed to do now?

  She covered her face with her hands trying to hide from the reality that she was alone with a very, very small person, then dropped them and straightened her back. She was being idiotic. How hard could it be after all? She could do this.

  She’d start by feeding Toby some lunch. Maybe not the healthiest lunch—she wouldn’t try for a tofu stir-fry or anything too ambitious—but she had peanut butter and jelly and bread. Every toddler liked PBJ, right? It was like a universal law.

  Toby didn’t.

  Or at least he didn’t like her PBJ. Her peanut butter had lumps in it. Crunchy bits. All of Akira’s persuasive abilities couldn’t convince Toby that peanut butter was meant to have peanuts in it. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because her jam was the wrong color. It was too red. A bad red. And the bread…Toby poked at it disconsolately.

  “You could take a bite and see,” she suggested. “Maybe it tastes better than it looks.”

  “I did.” He pointed to the edge where the tiniest nibble of crumb might be gone. “It didn’t.”

  The ringing doorbell was a welcome interruption from the big brown eyes staring forlornly at her from across the table.

  Meredith thrust the take-out container in her direction in a rush of words, “I was at Maggie’s when Zane swung by and I needed to talk to you anyway, so I said I’d drop this off. But I can’t stay—I’ve got a million things to do. I left a message with Nick Bendow but I haven’t heard back from him yet. His manager, though, said that he’s on an international tour and has been gone for months.”

  “A what?”

  “Yeah, fun, isn’t it? He’s a musician. Anyway, the manager didn’t know anything about Nick letting someone use the house. He’s going to check, but I think your tenant is probably a squatter. Thank you so much for letting me know. It could have turned into a huge problem, but I’ll call the sheriff and get it taken care of.”

  “Wait, wait.” Akira put a hand up in protest. “What does that mean, get it taken care of?”

  “Well, get her out of there.” Meredith raised her eyebrows. “If she broke the locks to get in, it’s a crime. And the sooner I get her out the better. Squatting is a serious problem in Florida; I don’t want to wind up spending months in court fighting her.”

  Akira took a deep breath. This was the solution she needed, wasn’t it? If the sheriff evicted Nora, Hannah would be happy and no one would be in any danger from her. Toby might not be able to feel Hannah now, but Akira didn’t know what would happen to him if Hannah lost control. But still, what would Nora and her kids do if they lost their home? And at Christmas? And it would be terrible if Nora got arrested. But Akira’s pause to think took too long.

  “Gotta run,” Meredith said, glancing at her watch. “Later. And Merry Christmas!” With that, she was gone, heels clicking as she hurried down the path, red hair glinting in the sun.

  Akira walked back to the kitchen carrying the container and biting her lower lip so hard it hurt. She knew the Latimers would help Nora if she asked them to. She probably didn’t even have to ask. For all she knew, Zane had already texted Grace and a moving van was at the house, packing up Nora’s possessions to move her someplace safer. But Nora didn’t seem like someone who would easily accept help like that. In fact, Nora didn’t like someone who would easily accept any help.

  Maybe Rose could hypnotize her again?

  “Rose.” Akira called to the ghost girl as she reached the kitchen. “I need to talk to you.” Rose had accompanied Nora to the hospital in the ambulance, returning with Zane in the morning, and the two of them hadn’t had a chance to talk about last night’s events.

  “It was amazing. Amazing.” Rose twirled around in the middle of the kitchen floor, her skirt flaring up, her hair spinning with her.

  “What was?” Akira crossed to the counter.

  “I saw a baby get born. A baby. She was so tiny. She was so . . . it was so . . . it was so gross. Really, just ew. The whole thing. Ick. Disgusting. I can’t believe you have to do that. But then after, there was a baby. And she blinked. Her eyelashes were the littlest, teeniest-tiniest eyelashes you ever saw, just little dark specks on her eyes. They were so adorable.”

  Akira smiled as she lifted the lid off the container. And then she frowned, distracted from Rose’s enthusiasm by the food in front of her. What was this? Everything Maggie made was good so she was sure it would be tasty, but she’d never seen it before. It was sort of like her favorite vegetable biryani, only…not. Those were chunks of chicken, she thought, poking at it with a sense of rising indignation. What had Maggie made?

  “What dat?” asked Toby, sliding off his chair and joining her. He stood on tiptoes as Akira lifted the container down to show him.

  Before she could tell him that it was biryani and he wouldn’t like it, he heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Subiyan. Yes, peas. Dank you.”

  “What?”

  “For me?” he asked, looking up at her, face plaintive. “I yike.”

&n
bsp; “Um, sure,” Akira said. This looked an awful lot like some kind of stir-fried rice to her. “How do you feel about tofu?”

  “Tofu pasghetti or tofu smoovie? Or de cheese square tofu or da tofu on sayad? I no yike on sayad.”

  Akira translated all of that without much difficulty as she reached for a bowl, and it renewed her resolve. Another semi-vegetarian had moved to Tassamara. That made the town’s count two. Three if they included Toby. Somehow she had to figure out how to keep them here.

  *****

  Ba-de-ba-ba.

  Akira opened sleepy eyes.

  Ba-de-ba-ba.

  She picked up her phone and glared at the screen, licking dry lips and yawning. “Yes?”

  “Good morning, love.”

  “Jerk,” she mumbled at him. “What time is it?”

  “Oh, insanely early.” Zane sounded much too cheerful for a man who hadn’t come home all night. “You ready to wake up?”

  “No.” She clicked the off button and set the phone back down, then rolled over and stared at her sleeping companion. Toby was adorable asleep, the chipmunk cheeks eminently kissable, the short dark curls a scruff that she longed to pet.

  Ba-de-ba-ba.

  Her phone rang again. She closed her eyes. She could ignore it. She would ignore it. But he’d keep calling. She could turn the ringer off. But eventually she’d have to deal with him.

  “Where the hell are you?” she hissed into the phone.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He sounded contrite but also amused. Or was that pleased with himself? Her eyes narrowed and she shifted to try to get a look at the clock. It was after seven, but not much after.

  “Your errand took you twenty hours,” she snapped, doing the math with ease.

  “Yeah, I didn’t expect that,” he said. “Also, though, I haven’t slept in, um, thirty, maybe?”

  Akira blinked. She’d napped at Nora’s house after Zane and Nora and Rose went off to the hospital. It hadn’t been good sleep, but it had been some. And she’d dozed a little during the day. And at seven-thirty the previous evening, when Toby started yawning, she’d put them both to bed with relief. She might not be ready to wake up but that was because she hated waking up, not because she needed sleep.

  She rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, phone to her ear. “Are you tired, sweetie?” she asked with mock sympathy. “I’m in bed. Our bed. It’s nice and warm, cozy and soft.” She let her voice drop to a croon. “I’m wearing that silk tank top you like, the black one that’s too short, with that weird v-neck and those tiny straps.”

  “Are you really?” The groan behind the words was fully satisfying.

  “No, of course not,” she said, returning to her normal voice. “I’ve got company. I’m wearing a t-shirt.”

  He laughed. “I hope he doesn’t wet the bed.”

  “Ugh. But no, I don’t think so.” She looked at Toby again. The conversation hadn’t disturbed him. His sleep was deep and his breathing even. “Where are you?”

  “Nora’s getting released from the hospital at 8,” he said, ignoring her question. “I’ve arranged for a ride home for her and the baby. Can you be at the house by 9 to meet her?”

  “What about the sheriff?” Akira asked with a yawn. Zane had refused to tell her where he was or what he was doing but they’d texted back and forth the previous day about her worries.

  “He’s holding off. He told Meredith that he’d check as soon as he could but that they were real busy with Christmas week, vacations, and that drug mess that just went down. It’ll be okay, though.”

  “Mmm.” Akira closed her eyes.

  “Don’t go back to sleep,” Zane ordered. “Akira? Come on, babe, 9 o’clock at Nora’s house.”

  “Hannah’s house,” Akira corrected him. That was the problem, she thought sleepily. Whose house was it, really? Did it belong to the living or to the dead?

  “Nick’s house,” he corrected her. Ah, of course. But the mysterious Nick was absent.

  Abruptly, Akira sat up. “Did you find Nick?”

  “Hmm.” Zane’s answer was a satisfied hum, wordless but still revealing.

  “Is it okay with him that Nora is there?” Akira demanded. “Is he coming home? Will he tell Hannah to move on?”

  “I’ll see you at the house, babe. As close to 9 as I can manage.” Click.

  Akira glared at the phone. Then she smiled and shoved the covers away. Almost two hours was plenty of time to find out what Toby thought about tofu scrambled eggs.

  *****

  Nora looked both exhausted and radiant, Akira thought, as the woman stepped out of the front seat of a black Mercedes sedan that had pulled up in front of the house. Dave, a familiar face to Akira, stepped out of the driver’s side and tapped his forehead at her in a friendly, casual salute. She smiled at him as Toby raced down the path to his mother, who crouched down to meet his hug.

  Toby was talking and Nora was listening intently as Dave walked around the car and opened the back door, reaching inside and unbuckling a car seat. He pulled it out and motioned toward the house. “I’ll bring her in for you, shall I?”

  “Oh, no,” she protested, reaching for the handle of the car seat, before grimacing and touching her abdomen briefly. “You’ve done too much. I can get it.”

  “Paycheck, remember?” he said cheerfully. “I do what the boss says and it pays my mortgage. Doesn’t matter to me whether it’s flying through a tornado or carrying a mite like this. You gotta figure you might be saving my life, though, by keeping me away from those tornadoes.” He grinned at her and she smiled back. Toby slipped his hand into hers and together they followed Dave up the path.

  “Howdy, Akira.” Dave nodded to her as Akira stood from her seat on the porch steps, greeting him and hurrying to pull open the screened door. He carried the baby inside and set her down on the floor by the couch, before looking down at her and giving a shake of his head. “You ever seen anything as tiny as that?” he asked Akira in a hushed voice as she joined him.

  She looked down at the baby. What had Zane said, five pounds something? Nora’s daughter had to be smaller than that. She was minute. Infinitely small. The tiniest thing Akira had ever seen. And yet somehow she sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Akira dropped to her knees next to the car seat and looked at the baby’s fingers. That had to be wrong. There was no way it was possible for human fingers to be so, so, so incredibly tiny. And yet they were.

  Dave and Nora were talking by the door, Nora thanking Dave and Dave brushing her off.

  “Is dat my baby sistah?” Toby asked Akira.

  She looked at the little boy standing next to her, soberly looking down at the newborn.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, wondering how Toby felt about the whole thing.

  He crouched next to the car seat and took a long look. Then, carefully, gently, he placed a red wooden train next to the sleeping baby’s leg. “You can pay wit James,” he told her in a loud whisper. “When you yake up.” With that he stood and wandered away, apparently done with the whole thing, and ready to get back to train-ville.

  Akira smiled after him as Nora came into the room and dropped down onto the hard couch.

  “She’s beautiful,” Akira told the other woman.

  “Hmph,” Hannah snorted from behind her. “She looks like a little old man.”

  Nora smiled, eyes tired. “Thank you for everything. Taking care of Toby and—” She gestured as if trying to find words to encompass what she meant, before adding, “—the other night.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Akira answered with genuine truth. Once over the scary hurdles of his morning dismay and his highly specific preferences in food, she and Toby had had fun together. They’d set up his train tracks and played with the trains, walked down to the little park in town and admired the ducks, eaten dinner at the bistro, even visited Mrs. Swanson and had their auras read. (Toby’s was a lovely shade of green, which meant, according to the old woman, “Don’t bother to argue with him, dear,
he’s very strong-willed.” Mrs. Swanson still hadn’t decided what Akira’s deep, almost iridescent blue aura signified.)

  “It was a mistake to come here.” Nora rubbed a hand over her face. “I thought I had more time.”

  “Why did you?” Akira asked.

  Nora shook her head as if she wasn’t sure of the answer to the question, before giving a soft chuckle. “Have you read the pregnancy books yet?”

  “Some of them.”

  “When they talk about the nesting instinct, they’re not kidding. We were in the city, Toby and me, and everything was so busy and crowded and chaotic. And cold. It started to snow and Toby had the sniffles and I was miserable. On Thanksgiving weekend, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I had to get to a place that was peaceful, safer. Not to mention warm and sunny. So I packed up Toby and some stuff and headed here.”

  “The city?” Akira asked, wondering. None of that sounded as if Nora was homeless and desperate. Maybe getting evicted wouldn’t be a problem.

  “New York,” Nora replied, as if there was only one city.

  Akira blinked. Nora and Toby had come here from New York? But . . . “Your furniture?” she asked with a look around the room at the beat-up furniture.

  “Oh, that was all in storage down here,” Nora said, as the baby opened her eyes and started to fuss. “Can you pass her to me?”

  Akira, still kneeling next to the baby, looked down at the little girl’s face. The sweet sleeping peaceful look was gone, replaced by an uncertain scowl. While she watched, the baby opened and closed her tiny mouth like a goldfish gasping for air. “You want me to pick her up?”

  “I’m a little stiff,” Nora said, sounding apologetic. Akira’s doubt must have been obvious, because Nora added, “She doesn’t bite. And you won’t drop her. You are going to have one of your own pretty soon, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Akira licked her lips and reached for the straps that kept the baby secure. As she fumbled with the buckle, footsteps sounded on the porch and a male voice called out Nora’s name.