The Tidings - [Ghost Huntress 0.5 - A Christmas Novella]

by Marley Gibson

  “That’s just it, Kendall.” Patrick lifts my chin up with his index finger and laser-beams his gaze into mine. “You’re no longer a kid. You just turned eighteen and this isn’t the present. It’s the future. You’re an adult now. This is who you are. It’s not something you can tamp down and walk away from. It’s what you are.”

  With a sniff, I say, “I should have told Suzanne. I could have warned her or given her the information as a possibility. It’s all in the way I couch the premonitions, visions, and intuitions.”

  Patrick smiles at me. “Now you’ve got it.”

  “So, I can rectify this?” I practically beg.

  “It’s just one potential future, Kendall.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. It’s short-lived, though. Patrick crooks his head to the door and out we go.

  “There’s more.”

  I gulp down hard. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Without flight or fancy, we’re suddenly… I don’t know where. Phantom Patrick stretches out his hand and pulls me along with him. I sense eyes on me from every direction, hidden behind corners, peering from windows. A chill creeps up my back and my skin itches.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  “A bad neighborhood,” is the ghost’s response.

  It’s not a somewhere I’ve ever been to before in my life. The storefronts are run-down, with broken windows and graffiti covering the outer walls. Drunks stumble out of clubs, barely able to walk a straight line or, God forbid, try to drive. The air is wrought with the stench of rotten beer, stale cigarettes, and… eww… is that urine?

  I stifle a gag by putting my hand to my mouth. “Seriously? This is my future?”

  “Not yours,” Patrick warns. “Someone you love, but deserted.”

  Who? Who in the world—that I love and care about—could possibly be any bit attached to a cesspool area such as this?

  We duck into an alley, stepping over bags of garbage that have been pillaged through. My stomach lurches from the sour odor of the trash and something akin to rotting rat corpses. I’ve been in Halloween horror houses before, yet nothing could ever prepare me for how discombobulated I am walking through this neighborhood.

  Nails and broken glass scatter in front of us. I pick my way carefully through it knowing I’m only in socked feet. It would be my luck to come out of this dream with a shard of something in my big toe.

  “You’ll be fine,” Phantom Patrick tells me. “This way. We’re almost there.”

  This is a place of ill-repute. An area where you wouldn’t want to send your worst enemy. Here, secrets are spilled, reputations lost, and lives ruined. There are no good guys. No strong characters. No redeemable values. No fairy godmothers. Only criminals, miscreants, and troublemakers.

  “Over there.” Patrick points across the street to a corner building. It’s made of painted cinderblock and has a flashing red neon sign overhead that reads “Live Nudes.”

  Live Nudes? Well, I certainly don’t want to see dead ones. For that matter, I don’t want to see nudes at all.

  “You’re taking me to a strip club?” I ask, disbelieving.

  “I don’t have a choice,” he tells me.

  My heart pounds inside my chest, throbbing with an ache of the unknown. Apparently in this future scenario, I’m not privy to my psychic abilities that can head off the mystery of this situation.

  We pass through the wall of the building and into the dingy red-lit hue of the night club’s interior. Patrons spread throughout the bar, dancing and drinking and smoking. I feel the need to choke and cough although the odor really has no effect on me. In the center of the room, there’s a large stage with a red curtain on the back. Three silver poles dot the left, middle, and right of the platform. A horseshoe-shaped bar juts out from the front of the area and it’s filled with the impatient audience members waiting for the next performer.

  Patrick motions me to the front where we take two cracked red-leather bar stools that have seen better days.

  “This is disgusting. Who could have ended up here?”

  I think of my friend, Becca Asiaf, who as a bit of a wild child in her Goth days when I first moved to Radisson. Since joining our ghost huntress group, though, she no longer dresses all in black and is really into her music. Surely this isn’t her future. Or is it?

  “Is Becca the DJ here?”

  Patrick shakes his head. “Not even close.”

  Celia Nichols would never darken the doors of a place like this. She’s going to MIT or Stanford or Georgia Tech to become a Ph.D. in some sort of engineering or similar. It can’t be Taylor Tillson, can it? Unquestionably, Taylor’s had a rough time with her parents’ divorce, her mother’s attempted suicide, and having to live a semester in Alaska. But she’s one tough cookie who has her shit together. There’s no way she’s going to come out from behind that red curtain.

  I think of some of my classmates who haven’t always been that nice to me, particularly Courtney Langdon. While I get a five-second fantasy laugh that maybe she’s the one working here, it’s quickly squashed with the desire to help her find her way, if that’s who it is. Stephanie Crawford is sort of stiff when she does her cheerleader routines, so I doubt swinging on a metal pole would be her style.

  Then who?

  “You’ll see,” Patrick informs me.

  As he speaks, the house lights dim, a spotlight shines on the middle of the stage, and the emcee’s voice crackles through the PA system. “And now, what you’ve been waiting for. Put your hands together for our very own Christmas treat, ready for the unwrapping.”

  “Eww… gross.”

  “Put your hands together for Mrs. Claus!”

  A gnarly techno beat grinds out and the crowd of unmentionables begins to come to life, fist pumping, waving cash overhead, and drunkenly swaying in time with the music.

  The red curtain parts and a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, steps out in a red-velvet bikini with white trimmed fur. She’s wearing a Santa hat, a pout, and not much else. I’m tempted to look away, but I know her. At least, that’s what Phantom Patrick says. Yet, this girl looks weathered and tired, abused and used. Her body is shapely and her face is attractive underneath all of that caked-on makeup. I can’t tell if the red hair is a wig or if it’s dyed that color.

  As she begins to do the bumps and grinds to the nasty beat, I feel as though my heart has been crushed in a fist of revulsion and disillusionment. Through the thick mascara and heavily lined lids, I see eyes that I’d know anywhere. The smile of a once-innocent girl who so looked up to me… until we grew apart.

  “Kaitlin,” I say in a choked whisper.

  Patrick props his elbows on the bar. “In the flesh.”

  I glare at him as hard as I’ve ever glared at anyone in my life. “That was inappropriate.”

  “Perhaps, but it’s the truth. Look at her up there.”

  I can’t. I can’t sit here and watch my baby sister do a strip tease for these malefactors waving sweaty, crinkled dollar bills at her. Overturning my bar stool, I rush the stage.

  “Kaitlin! Stop this! This isn’t who you are!”

  “Who is she, Kendall?” Patrick shouts.

  Tears blind my vision as my sister continues her routine. “Kai-Kai! Please don’t! You’re so much better than this. How did you end up here?”

  “Do you really want to know?” the ghost asks of me.

  I growl at him. “I can’t control another person’s life or their destiny. Kai-Kai… don’t….”

  Phantom Patrick plays with the sleeve of his long, black robe. “No, you can’t. However, you can greatly influence someone else. The rift between you and Kaitlin just grew and grew and grew until it ripped your family apart. She moved out, never went to college, never spoke to you or your parents again. Now look at her.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  I desperately try to throw myself before my sister, blocking her rotation on the pole in front of her. But I’m just an
unseen visitor in this time, so my efforts fail.

  “Oh Kaitlin… I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Falling to my knees, I break down in horrendous sobs as my little sister—no longer little, but a full-grown woman—degrades herself in front of these drunken animals. With each dance move, she spits in the face of everything she’s been taught in life by our parents.

  I feel my heart breaking into the four chambers of ventricles and atriums. “I don’t want this. I don’t want this at all. Please….”

  I shouldn’t have complained about fixing Kaitlin’s dress. I should have asked to see her trophy. I should have sat out on the porch and celebrated the soccer win with her and her friends. Would that have stopped this horrible collision course my sister’s on?

  Ghostly Patrick encompasses me and lifts me off the ground. “Okay, there, I think we’ve made our point.”

  Poof!

  The stinky bar, revolting patrons, and alternate universe Kaitlin are gone.

  “I got it!” I say to my guide. “I’ve. Got. It.”

  Patrick rubs my hair to sooth me. I don’t know if anything will ever erase that horrid scene from my mind, even if it was only a “possibility” or merely a dream.

  “Don’t you have anything happy to show me?” I ask as I wipe away remnants of my crying jag.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  He pushes up the sleeves of his Reaper-ish cloak and snaps his fingers.

  I’m now in a snow-filled park. Chubby white flakes sail peacefully down from the sky, landing in drifts around me. A Christmas tree off in the distance flickers in the twilight. Ice sculptures of penguins, castles, and a full Santa sleigh are spotlighted for all to see. Skaters circle around in a nearby rink, bundled up for the cold in fleece, gloves, and scarves.

  “Where are we?” I ask.

  “I believe we’re in Boston,” Patrick tells me.

  I look all around me. “This is the Boston Common. It’s gorgeous!” All of the surrounding trees are draped in white lights, outlining their bare branches in a wintry beauty. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”

  “Now you have. This way, please. I want to show you something.”

  I follow Phantom Patrick down the paved path that’s been shoveled to clear the snow out of the way. The fresh dusting of icy wonder tickles my nose and eyelashes, just like in the song, “My Favorite Things.”

  Bright lights flood the area before us. It’s a man-made skating rink filled with tons of people taking a turn this Christmas Eve. Yes, it’s Christmas Eve here in Boston. I can feel it in my bones. A nearby sign says the place is called “Frog Pond.” How quaint. It’s what I’ve always pictured New England to be.

  “I used to ice skate,” I tell the ghost. “When I lived in Chicago, my dad took Kaitlin and me to the rink every Saturday in December. I was pretty good,” I say with a smile.

  “You still are,” Patrick says, pointing out into the middle of the rink.

  “Huh?”

  “There you are.”

  I crook my head to get a good look at the woman in the middle of the ice, spinning around in a graceful manner. Her hair is pulled to the side in a long braid and she’s wearing a black knit hat and a Burberry scarf with matching gloves.

  “That’s… me?”

  “Yep. Sure is,” Patrick affirms.

  I’m not exactly partial to Burberry, but we’ll go with it. Wow. I turned out all right. I’m not fat or skinny; I’m just right. Normal. I’m probably about thirty-five, thirty-six years old, although I’m not positive. And I look remarkably happy.

  “Mommy! Mommy! Show me how to do that!” a little girl of about eight yells.

  My heart halts and then restarts like a NASCAR engine. “Did she call me Mommy?”

  “She sure did,” the ghost says.

  “Me too, me too!” another girl of the very same age and size echoes.

  I glance back at Patrick. “Are those my kids? I have twin girls?”

  He smiles. “Looks like it.”

  The older me skates to a stop in front of the first girl who is toothless in front, much like my sister, Kaitlin, was that faithful Christmas morning in Lincoln Park. The other girl appears the same, only their faces are slightly different. Fraternal twins, I’d guess. Oh, my God. They are absolutely a-dor-a-ble! I watch in awe as I take each girl by their mittened hands and help them skate around with the rest of the crowd.

  Samantha and Claire.

  Don’t ask me how I know their names. I just do. They’re perfect little miracles of preciousness. I’ve never felt this overwhelming heart palpitation before like I’m experiencing now. I am in love with them. They are part of me. I’m their mom! They’re so amazing. Where did they get that jet-black hair, though? And those cat-like green eyes?

  “Wave at Daddy,” Future Me tells them as we skate by where Patrick and I are standing.

  He looks at me and holds his hands up. “Don’t look at me. I’m just the guide.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He points, again—which he’s been doing a lot of as my ghostly guide. His aim lands on a tall man standing in the middle of the ice with his phone video recording the twins and me. He’s dressed in gray slacks and a black Navy pea coat. A scarf of red and green circles his neck.

  “Look at me, Daddy,” Claire exclaims.

  “That’s my girl,” the man says to her.

  Who the hell is he?

  Before I can verbalize the question, I watch Older Kendall and the girls skate straight toward the tall, dark, and handsome man. Not just attractive, but head turning, stunning, dazzling—Holy Mother of Christmas Past, Present, and Future…who is that gorgeous hunk of man?

  “Oh, Rafe! Look at them, sweetie,” I say as we come to a stop in front of him. Samantha and Claire wave at the camera and blow kisses.

  “I love you, Daddy! Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas, my angels,” this Rafe guy says back.

  “What the hell kind of name is Rafe?” I ask, trying to figure all of this out. “It sounds like a pirate or a romance novel hero. Or someone from a soap opera.”

  And then I watch in horror—or delight—as this beautiful man reaches out, cups Older Kendall’s face in his hand, and pulls her… me … to him in a fiery kiss while the snow continues to float down.

  Patrick lets out a long, high, wolf-like whistle.

  I spin away and look at the ghostly guide. “What on God’s green earth is going on over there?”

  He hitches his smile to the corner. “Looks like you hooked up with someone and had a couple of babies.”

  I fling my arms about. “I know what it looks like! Why isn’t it you out there? Why aren’t those your babies?”

  Betrayal coats me like the falling snow as I spy myself macking on this strange man with the black hair and clear green eyes.

  Patrick lifts his arms in surrender. “How the flagnon should I know, Kendall?”

  “Well, excuse me, Gallaxhar!” Since Patrick and I’ve watched “Monsters vs. Aliens” a hundred times, I’m not surprised his ghost is fighting with the movie quotes.

  He scoffs at me, though. “First off, I’m not really your Patrick. I’m just a figment of your imagination or a dream, or whatever. Secondly, I’m just showing you one conceivable future.”

  Panting, I try to slow my rapid breathing. “Is there a third point?”

  The ghost—who represents the guy I’m in love with right now—smiles and points for like the fortieth time. “Third? Sure. You look pretty damn perfectly happy.”

  All the blood rushes to my head and I feel as though I might faint. I can’t, though. Instead, I take a peek at the possible future family I could be a part of. Those cherubic faces. That hot, sexy man. The perfect picture of a happy family. I’m treacherously somewhat jazzed by it. Only for a moment, though.

  I hug myself to the phantom before me, his satin cloak encompassing me. “But I want to be pretty damn perfectly happy with you, Patrick.”


  The ghost’s lips brush the top of my head. “You very well may be. Only the future will tell. It’s up to you, Kendall.”

  “I want to go home,” I whine.

  “In due time.”

  “In due now.” I snuggle deeper into his arms. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons tonight from you, Celia, and Taylor… or whoever you all are. Do I have the power to change anything?”

  Patrick nods his head. “We have the power to change every moment of every day.”

  “I get it. I’ll do what I can. I’ll be a better person. I’ll take care of others. I’ll protect my family. I’ll love fiercely and live passionately. I’ll speak my mind and be the best person I can be.”

  He sets me back and lifts my face so that our gazes sync up. “That’s all any of us can do, you know?”

  I close my eyes, secure in the knowledge that every day brings new opportunity, hope, excitement, friendship, support, and most of all… love.

  When I lift my lids, Phantom Patrick and I are back in my bedroom, standing next to the pink and silver Christmas tree that lights everything in its soft glow.

  “I know you’re leaving soon. So, what’s next?”

  The ghost smiles down at me. He clears his throat. “‘Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change.’”

  I snicker hard. “Oh, dear God. You’re quoting Ebenezer Scrooge to me.”

  “Why, yes, I am.”

  “Dude, I’ve been Scrooged enough for one night.”

  “The message is still the same, Kendall. You know what you have to do.”

  I certainly do, so I quote a little Dickens myself. (Mr. Rorek would be so proud of me.) “‘I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me.’”

  Phantom Patrick bobs his head. “Very impressive.”

  Coyly, I twist a bit and say, “I had to learn it for my oral exam. Got an A.”

  “Of course, you did.” He escorts me over to the bed and turns the covers down for me. I climb underneath the blanket and smile up at him.