by K. J. Emrick
Colby followed, but at a more mature pace. “You’re such a little brother. I call dibs on the remote!”
Cha Cha went trotting after them, not knowing why everyone was so excited but definitely wanting to be part of the fun.
“Give me a minute to get some warmer clothes on, okay Izzy?” Darcy asked her friend. “And make a phone call.”
“Before we go back out in that cold? No problem. I want to soak in as much of this heat as I possibly can.”
Darcy was already reaching for the phone on the wall. Her cellphone wouldn’t make calls, so they had to keep the landline hooked up and pay the extra phone bill. Darcy didn’t mind. It was kind of nostalgic. Right now it was necessary, because she needed to make a call before she left.
She dialed the number by heart and listened to the phone ring until it was answered. Misty Hollow was a small town, sure, but it was home to almost all of her family. Across town, her sister, her sister’s husband, and their two children were riding out the snowstorm same as she was.
Darcy wanted to make sure they were okay before she left to check on everyone else.
“Hello?”
That wasn’t her sister’s voice, that was Grace’s husband. “Hey, Aaron. It’s Darcy.”
“Yeah, I know.” She heard him laughing softly. “There’s this thing they have nowadays called caller ID. Your name showed up on the screen. You wouldn’t know about that because you won’t get a cellphone that makes calls. You’re afraid of cellular radiation, or something like that?”
Darcy was happy to let him think that, if he wanted to. Her sister might know about the family gift—and have a little touch of it herself—but she was keeping those secrets. Aaron didn’t know. The fear of brain cancer was as good an excuse as any. “Um. Sure. But this is Grace’s phone. I was expecting her to answer.”
“Yeah, she left her phone behind when she went into work today.”
That caught Darcy by surprise. Her sister was the police department’s senior detective. If both the chief of police and the senior detective got called out, in the middle of a snowstorm, something bad definitely must have happened. “Grace went into work, too? Jon left this morning. Got picked up by a snowmobile of all things.”
“Yeah, Grace did too. Apparently that’s the new patrol car of choice for snowy days like this. Hey, if you hear from Jon can you have him tell Grace that I’ve got her phone, and our two adorable children are fine? They’re out playing in the snow right now.”
“Colby and Zane want to get out there too. Remember being that young and actually wanting to be out in the freezing cold?”
“Oh, yes I do. Hard to imagine. I’m freezing just watching them through the windows. So what’s up?”
Darcy peeked into the living room, checking on her own kids before going back to Aaron. “I was actually just trying to make sure that you guys still have power. Lights still on over there?”
“Yeah, we’re still good. Thanks for checking. You guys?”
“So far, so good. Lights and heat and power. If yours go out you’re welcome to come over here. If you can get here somehow, that is.”
“Sounds good. Hey, Darcy, have you heard from your mother? Grace has been worrying.”
“Yeah, me too. I got a few texts last night but nothing this morning. I’m sure she’s just busy trying to get a flight out. Everything’s delayed from what I understand.”
“Okay. Well, I’m sure everything’s okay. Just the weather.”
“Yeah,” she said without much conviction. “Thanks, Aaron.”
Before hanging up Darcy promised again to tell Jon about Grace’s cellphone if she heard from him, although it kind of worried her knowing that Jon and Grace had both been called into work, picked up by whichever member of the force had a snowmobile. Darcy tried to think who that might be. Lots of people in town had them. It was a New England thing.
Another text to her mother just a bit earlier had gone unanswered. Nothing to worry about, she reminded herself. Just the weather, like Aaron had said. Probably.
With those worries on her mind she picked up her cellphone from the counter and checked it for messages from Jon. There were two that she’d missed. One, saying he was going to be out for a while, and he loved her. The second one was letting her know the news said the plows were being kept off the roads again today. The state had issued a travel ban for the whole area.
No doubt that meant school was cancelled for tomorrow, too.
She sent Jon back a quick text, asking him what was going on and then telling him she was going into town with Izzy, the kids were fine, and she loved him, too. There wasn’t any immediate answer. He must be busy.
“All right, Izzy. I’ll get a sweater and we’ll get going…”
But then she stopped as she heard animal claws pitter-patting into the kitchen. Cha Cha was coming back, with something in his mouth.
A small, red, rubber ball.
The same one that the ghost of Joel Harris had been playing with last night. The same one she’d left downstairs, on a shelf, where no one could get to it.
Chapter 3
It had taken Darcy a long time to be okay with leaving after that. Cha Cha had given up the ball when she asked, but then he’d pranced excitedly around her feet expecting her to toss it for him. Darcy examined it closely in her hand. Just a rubber ball. That was all it was. Just a toy… that belonged to a ghost.
To Cha Cha’s great disappointment she put the ball up on the shelf above the refrigerator, and then smiled at Izzy as if the little ball wasn’t beginning to terrify her. In the living room she’d pulled Colby aside, over by the Christmas tree, and told her that there was a ghost hanging around. She said she didn’t think she should go after all. Colby had rolled her eyes like she always did and told her mom that they’d be fine. Colby had her own gift, she said, and she knew how to use it.
“Geez, Mom,” she said in her best grown-up voice. “It’s not like I’ve never seen a ghost before. I know what to do if one starts rattling his chains, or whatever. I can handle it. Especially if this is the ghost of a kid like me. There’s nothing scary about that.”
Truth be told, Darcy was incredibly proud of her daughter. She was proving that she could be trusted to take care of things herself, at least for a little while. Colby was a lot more secure in who she was than Darcy had ever been at that age. She liked to think that was a testament to her skills as a mother. No sense telling your child that you trusted them unless you were ready to follow through on it.
Finally, she’d given Colby another hug, and promised to be home soon. When she went upstairs to her bedroom, Tiptoe watched her dig out a heavy sweater and different socks from her dresser.
“You’re going to keep an eye on things for me, right Tiptoe?”
The gray cat blinked, and then blinked again. Of course, she was saying. When am I ever not watching?
Cats tended to get insulted when you asked them to do the obvious.
Darcy found the skis right where she remembered leaving them, in the back corner of the closet behind the boxes of old VHS movies that they really should give away, if they could find someone with a working VCR. After adding a heavy winter coat, and gloves, and a pink knitted cap, she and Izzy headed out into the snow.
The wind was crisp. It bit against the exposed skin of Darcy’s face. The snow fell all around them, from a low ceiling of clouds, layering over the already deep drifts so quickly that it almost swallowed up the tracks of their skis and the round impressions from their poles as they slid forward. There was already three or four feet of snow between them and the pavement. Izzy’s front steps had disappeared already. Her mailbox stuck up above it all like a submarine periscope.
Her house was dark and looked so very cold.
It felt odd to be moving right down the middle of the street this way. No cars. No people. No bird sounds. Just the snow falling all around, like a moving curtain of white parting in front of them. The swish of their skis was loud in the sil
ence. So was Darcy’s breathing.
And everywhere, the wind blew up little swirls of snow that hung suspended in the air for brief moments in time, rolling along like mist.
Her street was not all that long, and soon enough they were moving past Izzy’s house, and then they were coming up to Main Street. They didn’t say a word as they went. Speaking would break the spell the world had fallen under. It was magical. That was the only word Darcy could think of to describe it. This must be what it looked like on the inside of a snow globe when someone shook it all up. Misty Hollow had become a winter wonderland.
They checked on their bookstore first. Darcy owned it, but she and Izzy were partners in the business. Thick icicles hung from the edges of the roof. Blowing and drifting snow had blocked both the front and the back doors nearly up to the handles but peering in through the windows, they could see that the few lights they always left on inside were still working. The Christmas lights around the windows were still brightly lit with purple and red and green LEDs. They reflected off the strings of silver tinsel and the paper snowflakes hung from the bookshelves and ceiling. There weren’t any watermarks in the ceiling tiles, which probably meant the snow hadn’t gotten in through the roof yet. Darcy took it as a good sign.
“We’re going to have to shovel all day to get back in,” Izzy pointed out. Her breath plumed in the air as she spoke.
“True,” Darcy said, “but that can wait until tomorrow. If we do it now, we’ll just have to dig it out again when the plows go by.”
“Good. I wasn’t looking forward to doing any heavy lifting today. So, which way first?”
They picked a direction at random and started moving. The lamp posts had large tinsel decorations on them, Santas with red noses and prancing reindeer and geometric snowflakes. Several of the houses had been decorated for the upcoming holiday, too, with lights strung around the trees in their yards and hanging from their eaves. Some of them were still on as the two of them skied up one street and down the other. Some weren’t. Darcy knew several of her neighbors had those massive blow-ups in their yards, too—the ones of Rudolph and his friends or of gingerbread houses or larger-than-life Santa Clauses. They were all buried under the snow now, deflated and waiting to be dug out. The creche scene in front of the Town Hall was interred in snow, with nothing just the tip of the star on top of the manger visible.
They found a few other people outside, a few trying unsuccessfully to shovel their driveways, kids building snowmen on lawns deep with hard-packed snowfall, groups of teens having snowball fights. Darcy saw a dog at the window of one house, standing up on the back of a couch, wagging his tail and barking at the millions of tiny flakes swirling past. Everyone seemed to be having fun with the weather, making the most of a bad situation. Most of them took the time to wave as Darcy and Izzy slid past on their skis. The storm revealed just a few houses at a time, until they got closer.
Everywhere they looked, the power was still on.
“Maybe it’s just my house after all,” Izzy said when they stopped at the intersection of Finster and McLellan Streets for a breather. “It’s an old house. Almost as old as yours. Some of the wiring is still original, I think.”
“Looks that way.” Darcy wiped away the ice frozen to her eyelashes. She was right about all the physical activity making her warmer, but only by a little. She was still shivering and she’d had enough. “Let’s circle the block and then head back around to Main Street. Then home, I think.”
“Yup. I need me a cup of hot cocoa.”
Looking up at the flakes of snow spiraling down from the heavens above, Darcy smiled. She loved the wintertime but right now she was really cold. “Cocoa sounds great,” she said.
Izzy gave her a thumbs up and started off again. Their route was going to take them the long way around the park and then back to Main Street down past the bookstore. Way down from the bookstore, actually. They hadn’t even seen half of the town yet but there really wasn’t any need. It was pretty obvious from what they’d seen already that the power was working just fine. It must simply be that Izzy’s place had a faulty wire or a blown fuse or something. So they could cut their excursion short, which suited Darcy just fine. She wanted to get back to her children.
“Hey there, ladies!” they heard someone call out to them.
The snow deadened the sound and made it hard to tell where the voice was coming from at first. Then a shape came gliding out from the white haze of falling flakes. A man, moving like he was floating through the air. Like a ghost.
But then the man came closer and Darcy saw that he wasn’t floating, he was using skis just like they were. Someone else had the same idea. When he got closer, she saw who it was.
The newest resident of Misty Hollow was constantly surprising Darcy. Mark Franks turned himself around in a lazy circle that put him right beside Izzy. “Hey. I thought that was you behind that mask, Izzy.”
“Hey yourself,” Izzy said warmly. “Fancy meeting you out here.”
“Ha! I know, right? I’ve been all around this morning. All the way down both ends of Main Street. It’s a glorious day for skiing.”
“I didn’t know you skied, Mark,” Darcy told him.
“Oh, sure. I come from warmer climates than this, but I used to take ski trips all the time. I just never thought I’d get to do it on the buried streets of Misty Hollow. Are you two out enjoying the weather, same as I am?”
“Sort of. We were looking to see if everyone still had power. Looks like the snow hasn’t knocked it out yet.”
“The power? You mean like a blackout?” He blinked his eyes rapidly at the very thought. His high-pitched voice sounded brittle in the cold. “That sounds kind of scary. Especially in this cold weather.”
Mark probably wasn’t used to being in the cold, Darcy thought to herself. As deeply tanned as his skin was, he was more the sun-worshipping type. Warmer climates, like he’d said. That had been her first thought about him, actually, when the young man with the tight blonde curls had first walked into her bookstore a few months ago. At the time he’d just moved into Misty Hollow. Now he was a regular at her book club meetings and at all the town functions.
“It can be kind of fun when the power’s out, actually,” Izzy told him, “if you’re with the right person “
With a wink, Mark switched to a smooth French accent. “That zounds like fun, mon cheri.”
The two of them shared a look, and Darcy could almost see little crackles of electricity sparking off the snowflakes between them. Mark was quite the character, with his voices and his accents and his way of making you feel like you’ve known him forever, like he was an old familiar friend even though he’d only been in town a few months.
He was certainly in the bookstore often enough. He was a freelance writer, and he claimed he bought as many books as he did for research on his novels. It seemed kind of an expensive way to get your details straight for a story, especially when anyone with an internet connection could just ask Google for those same facts, but she had begun to suspect recently that it had less to do with the books he was buying and more to do with a budding interest in one of the two women who ran the bookstore itself.
And since Darcy was very happily married, that left Izzy McIntosh as the one Mark must be crushing on. How interesting.
“Well,” she said as those two continued to stare into each other’s eyes. “I guess we should keep going. If we’re going to get back to Colby and Zane.” She waited, and then added, “Right, Izzy?’
“Hmm? What? Oh. Right. I guess we should.”
Mark took the hint. Duckwalking his skis around, he tapped his finger to his temple. “I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see you in the bookstore, Izzy. Maybe I’ll send you a text tonight. just to make sure you’ll be there.”
It wasn’t until he had started skiing off that Izzy remembered to wave and call after him. “I’ll be up late if you want to text me!”
When she turned Darcy’s way again there
was a very goofy grin on her face, framed by the mouth hole in her mask. It took a moment for her to realize Darcy was staring. “What?”
“Since when does Mark Franks have your phone number?”
“Um. Since I might have given it to him the last time he came into the bookstore.”
Darcy swore she was blushing behind that knitted mask. “Izzy! You hardly know the man. Besides, you have a boyfriend, remember? The guy you couldn’t stop talking about all this last year? Kyle? Remember him?”
Now her smile turned into a frown. “Kyle’s job turned out to be more important than me, sad to say. We’re still on-again off-again but he keeps taking extra shifts and calling to cancel dates and… well. I tell you, Darcy, life gets awful lonely for us girls who don’t have a guy like Jon Tinker in our life.”
Darcy felt her own cheeks flush at the compliment. Jon was one of the good ones, to be sure. In her eyes he was the best man who ever drew a breath and she counted herself lucky every day she woke up next to him in bed. That didn’t mean he was the last good guy on Earth. There was someone great out there for Izzy, too. She’d find her own ‘Jon Tinker’ one day. Darcy was sure of it.
Looking back up the street in the direction Mark Franks had disappeared, back into the snowstorm, she wondered… why not? Maybe this was the guy for Izzy, right here. Maybe his showing up in Misty Hollow when he did was for a reason. Love never arrived the way you expected it to. When she’d first met Jon, she wanted to kill him, and just look at them now!
“Come on,” she said, deciding not to pester her friend any further over her choices in men. “Let’s get back to the house. It is positively freezing out here.”
“You’re telling me. Brr!” Izzy shot ahead with long, purposeful strides. “Come on! Just around this block and then back up Main Street… hold on. What’s that?”
Darcy swooshed to a stop next to her, looking down the side street that led back to Main, almost at the outskirts of the village. They were several blocks down from the bookstore now. She couldn’t see it, because the falling snow was hiding it.