Other Books by Stephenia H. McGee
Ironwood Plantation
The Whistle Walk
Heir of Hope
Missing Mercy
The Liberator Series
Leveraging Lincoln
Losing Lincoln
Labeling Lincoln
Stand Alone Titles
In His Eyes
Eternity Between Us
Novellas
The Heart of Home
Her Place in Time
The Hope of Christmas Past
The Hope of Christmas Past
Copyright © 2019 by Stephenia H. McGee
www.StepheniaMcGee.com
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.
This novella is a work of fiction. Though some locations and certain events may be historically accurate, names, characters, incidents and dialogue are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the author’s intent.
All rights reserved. This book is copyrighted work and no part of it may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or any information storage and retrieval system) without the author’s written permission. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the author’s permission is illegal and punishable by law. Thank you for supporting the author’s rights by purchasing only the authorized editions.
Cover Design: Evelyne Labelle, Carpe Librum Book Design
Cover House: Belmont Plantation, Greenville, MS
ISBN: 978-1-63564-043-4 eBook, 978-1-63564-044-1 POD
1. Christian time travel 2. Christian Historical 3. Holidays and Christmas 4. Family life 5. Foster Care and Adoption 6. Teen & YA 7. Christian contemporary
Copyright © 2019 Stephenia H. McGee
All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Other Books by Stephenia H. McGee
Copyright Page
Author’s Note
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Special Thanks
Scottish Recipes
About the Author
Dear reader,
If you’ve read In His Eyes, you probably recognize Belmont Plantation on the cover of The Hope of Christmas Past. It’s an honor to get to use real houses for my books, and this time I even had the pleasure of including some of the real people from Belmont in the story.
Currently a bed and breakfast owned by Mr. Joshua Cain, Belmont is a wonderful place to stay and take a step back in time. You will be hosted by Camille Collins and learn the house’s and area’s actual history from Sandra Stillman. Both ladies were gracious enough to make a cameo in this story. I had the pleasure of staying at Belmont near Christmas, and if you ever get the opportunity to do the same, I hope you take it!
While these lovely people are real, the history of Belmont Sandra gives to the characters in this novella is not. She describes the Remington family as the builders and historical occupants of the house. These are characters from In His Eyes, which ties back into this novella, but they are not historical figures. There also isn’t a painting in the house by one of the previous owners, and it certainly won’t take you back in time. But the idea sparked a fun, heartwarming Christmas story.
Please keep in mind, dear reader, that a story is all this is meant to be. It is not meant to spark a theological debate on whether God would allow the miracle of time travel. The Bible tells us “Man’s days are determined; You [God] have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed” (Job 14:5) and “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15).
Several of the things regarding the time travel in the story are not possible, but it allows us to suspend what we know to be true to simply enjoy the fictional freedom of the what if…? So, come with me, imaginative reader. Let’s go see what it might be like to step back in time…
Happy Reading!
Stephenia
The cheery Christmas music, the gingerbread-scented air freshener, and her foster mom’s happy humming couldn’t paint over the festering in Isla Laird’s heart. Because riding shotgun in a shiny red Honda on her way to spend an old-fashioned Christmas in an antebellum house wouldn’t change anything.
It would only mean more disappointment for them both.
“This’ll be great, won’t it?” Her foster mom grinned. “I’m so glad you came.”
The enthusiasm in Jody’s voice drew Isla from her contemplations, and she eyed the woman across from her. As if she’d had a choice.
At forty-seven, Jody looked good. She took care of herself, but not in an obsessive way. Her quick smile came often, and, in the eight months Isla had lived with her, the kindness in her deep brown eyes never faded.
Jody might be old enough to technically be Isla’s mom, but no one would ever mistake them for blood. Not with Isla’s red hair a striking contrast to Jody’s jet black, and Isla’s sun-starved complexion ghost-white against Jody’s perfect suede.
“I bet they have a big tree.” Jody tried again, undaunted by Isla’s mood.
Isla stared out the window at an endless expanse of flat, brown farmland. “Yeah?” She smirked. “Wonder where they got a tree around here?”
Jody laughed. “Walmart? The Dollar General?”
Isla rolled her eyes. Not that she didn’t have that coming. She drummed her freshly painted nails on the center console. Great. She’d smudged her thumb. Typical. She never could wait long enough for them to dry. She’d always been impatient.
Until now. Now she wished she could slow time down. At least until she figured things out.
One month and fourteen days and she’d be eighteen. A legal adult. Free.
And utterly alone.
God, can’t you do something? I know it would take a miracle, but I—
“Isla?” Jody’s voice held concern. “You okay?”
Isla blinked. “Yeah.”
“Did you hear what I said?” Her tone held no irritation, which Isla always appreciated. Never once had Jody called her spacy, though Isla’s former foster mom’s description still fit.
The familiar urge to lie to please sprang to her tongue, but she pushed it away. Nope. No more. From now on, it would be the truth. No matter what people thought, she’d tell them the truth. Too bad truth was usually an ugly friend.
“Sorry. I spaced out.”
Jody nodded and turned her attention back to the road. “I think I missed our turn.”
Isla lifted her eyebrows. Seriously? “I know the GPS doesn’t work out here in the boonies, but”—she gestured to the flat, empty land—“how can you miss a turn? There’s nothing out here.” She eyed the sea of dead stalks that had once been cotton and corn. “Have you seen another road?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “A mile or two back.”
Isla stared at her. “So, you saw one road, the first in, oh, I don’t know, twenty miles of nothing, and didn’t think that might be your turn?”
The car bumped along the deserted backwoods road in the middle of nowhere in the Mississippi Delta. Didn’t horror movies start like this? People stranded in abandoned fields?
“I was watching an 18-wheeler barreling toward the stop sig
n. I didn’t think he would stop, and didn’t want him plowing into us.” She shrugged again, her polka-dotted scarf rising up to her Christmas present earrings. “I bet I should have turned there. That had to have been 438.”
Isla blew out a frustrated breath. “So turn around.”
Jody didn’t seem bothered, but she never did. Even when Isla tested her. The woman was solid. Steady. Her kind gaze never changed. Like she still wanted them to be a makeshift family—if Isla wanted.
She’d thought she wanted a new family once. People who wouldn’t replace her parents, but would at least be there for her. But that stupid dream died three foster homes ago. And now she was too old. What would be the point?
Isla eyed Jody again. Why bother? Sure, people liked to make themselves feel good by taking in stray kids, and Jody probably thought she checked off her good deed box by taking Isla to a place her history-professor parents would have loved. Good for her, but Isla knew better.
If no one had wanted an orphaned youth who’d tried too hard to be loved, then what kind of brain defect made Jody Choi think she needed to attach herself to the state of Mississippi’s leftovers now?
Maybe that was it. She could do her good deed with someone temporary. Aging out of the foster system meant she didn’t need to be adopted. No commitment.
Jody glared at her phone.
Isla rolled her eyes. Still no GPS in the sticks.
That had to be it. Isla was a safe choice because she wouldn’t expect to be adopted. No long-term hassle. Kind of like those people who said they didn’t need a piece of paper to actually be married. What they really meant was that they wanted to be able to leave whenever they were fed up without having to deal with courts.
“Ah. There it is!” Jody jerked the wheel, and they made a sharp turn.
“Crap!” Isla clawed at the passenger door. The Honda rocked dangerously to the side. When they righted, Isla gripped the door with white knuckles.
“Oops.” Jody laughed. She pointed ahead. “There it is!”
A smattering of lonely trees opened to the back of a massive brick house. Chimneys poked fingers at the slate sky as though reaching heavenward. The size of a decent motel, it seemed as out of place in this empty expanse as a mall in the middle of the ocean.
“Isn’t it pretty?”
Isla ignored the question as they came to a stop, and Jody flicked on the right blinker, apparently to warn the dried stalks of their ironically snaillike turn.
“We’ll turn here.” The car glided onto the empty Highway 1. “And there’s the drive.” Jody commentated as if Isla needed a play-by-play as they turned between two wrought-iron gates flanked by sturdy brick columns.
Ancient magnolias lined the drive, and, at its end, the two-story mansion was decked in Christmas finery. Green garland dotted with wreaths and merry red holly hung from the white railing on the balcony and front porch. Bright sunlight glinted off windows containing tapered candles.
Festive. And isolated. No one but her and Jody and a bunch of strangers who had nowhere better to be than a bed-and-breakfast for Christmas. Yay.
“Won’t this be great?” Jody pulled into the circular drive that curved in front of the house and put the car in park.
Sure. It’ll be great! The lie died on her tongue. Honesty. Right. There was no point in trying to impress anyone anymore. One month and fourteen days. Six weeks. “This whole thing is just putting icing on an expired cake.”
Jody sighed. “It’s Christmas, Isla. Can’t you at least try?”
“Why?”
She wrinkled her forehead, causing her bangs to shift. “Why? Because.”
Which of them was the adult? “Because…?”
“Ugh. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas is supposed to be fun.”
“Then we shouldn’t have come here.”
Silence filled the car almost as thick as the gingerbread-scented air freshener. Her smile fading, Jody opened her door and climbed out without a word.
Shame slid over Isla as she followed Jody up the brick stairs. Jody knocked on the front door. Isla shouldn’t have said that, even if it was true. But what was the point of this little experiment? In six weeks she would be kicked out of the system, and she didn’t even graduate until May.
Her social worker had tried to talk about it at their meeting last week, but Isla hadn’t been ready to face the future. She’d panicked and shut down.
Now she wished she knew her options. Then maybe the unknown wouldn’t keep poking at her.
The large door with a gaudy wreath swung open, revealing a lady with a wide smile and perfect teeth. “You must be Jody!”
Dressed in a festive blouse and jeans, the host had shoulder-length brown hair curled under at the ends and expressive eyes.
Jody grinned. “And this is Isla,” she said, pointing over her shoulder.
Isla stared at her shoes. She hated introductions.
“Hi, Isla.” A pause. “You look like our Ella. She had red hair, too.”
Who? Isla gave a nod without looking up. She followed Jody into the house and paused at a wide entry, but all she could see of the house was the tips of her Converse on the wooden floor. Reminding herself she would soon be an adult, she forced her gaze to their host.
“Welcome to Belmont.” The lady smiled. “I’m Camille.”
“Thanks.” Isla shifted her feet. The woman already knew their names. Isla didn’t have to announce hers, did she?
Jody grinned again, an annoying habit that seemed worse today than usual, and looked Isla’s way as if she’d solved world hunger. Man. She hadn’t even shaken the lady’s hand. Mumbling thanks was hardly an accomplishment. With her lack of social skills, how would she survive a job interview?
The Belmont lady took them through a pair of pocket doors that were bigger than most of her eight foster bedrooms and into what the woman called a ladies’ parlor, where she was immediately dumped into the eighteenth century.
Didn’t these people appreciate modern furnishings? Her mother probably would have loved this place. Isla eyed a pair of wide chairs squatting on the floor on either side of a polished table topped with a silver tea set. The chairs were only about eight inches off the floor. Why would anyone want to sit that low?
They continued the tour, Jody fawning over boring antiques and history. After a dining area and a restored library, they passed into a music room. This one, like the men’s and ladies’ parlors, held a smartly decorated Christmas tree twinkling with tiny lights.
Isla passed the decorations, drawn to a violin on a stand in the corner. Beautiful! She hadn’t had one in so long. Not since the one her parents had given her had accidentally been lost at her first foster home. Stolen by one of the other teens and sold for drugs, more likely.
She ached to touch its polished form, her fingers itching to draw out notes she hadn’t experienced since her parents died. Memories scorched through her, burning down pathways she’d tried to keep closed off for years. She sucked in a breath and forced the pain back into the dark corners of her heart. No point blubbering over the past. It didn’t do any good.
After a few heartbeats, the moisture in her eyes cleared. Isla’s gaze drifted up from the violin to the papered walls, and a flicker of something caught her eye.
What was that?
A painting hung on the wall, depicting an ancient tree and a sweeping field. Isla blinked. There it was again. Did the painting…move?
She stepped closer, eying the tree. She could have sworn those leaves had shivered in an unseen breeze. She leaned in, catching a whiff of something sweet. Something she’d never smelled before. An air freshener? She glanced around the room. She didn’t see any plug-ins or potpourri jars.
The women still babbled on about the house’s history. Isla looked back at the painting. There! The leaves moved. They shimmered. It had to be a trick of the light. She stepped to the side.
Music.
Was that music?
“Isla?”
> The sound of her name snapped her out of the trance. Her fingers still hung midair where she’d reached toward the painting. She dropped her hand, and heat stung her cheeks as if she’d been caught stealing.
“Yeah?”
“Camille asked if we were ready to see our rooms.”
She cast another look at the painting, the tiny hairs on her arms standing on edge. “Uh, yeah.”
The women left the room and Isla followed, a strange melody drifting behind her.
Something totally weird was going on here. Isla shivered as she made a turn on the stair landing and headed to the second floor. This place better not be haunted.
“And this room belonged to Ella,” the lady said, catching Isla’s attention with the name. Hadn’t the other woman, Camille, mentioned that Isla looked like her?
This new lady, Sandra, seemed to be the local historian. She was short, even shorter than Isla’s five four, with silver-tinted hair that swept her hips. She had a genuine smile, and her eyes sparked with quick wit and a love of the history she’d spouted since they’d met downstairs.
“Did you say Ella?” Isla asked, drawing the woman’s eye. “Who is she?”
Jody gave a slight shake of her head. Oops. Sandra had probably already said that. Isla must have drifted off into her own world again. Her cheeks heated.
“She was the lady of this house,” Sandra said, not sounding at all annoyed. “The one who wasn’t supposed to be.”
Isla cocked her head and Sandra’s eyes sparkled. “Not supposed to?”
“She rescued an orphaned baby and came here looking for a nursemaid. Pretended to be the widow of Westley Remington.” She winked. “But he was still very much alive.”
Isla poked her head into a rose-colored room. A massive carved bed topped with an antiquated quilt dominated the space. “Why would she do that?”
“To save the baby and help the nursemaid,” Jody explained.
She should have listened. “Oh.”
Sandra offered her a sweet smile. “The Federals were here looking for taxes at the start of reconstruction after the war. Sibby, the Black woman who ran Belmont in Westley’s absence, wouldn’t have been able to keep the Federal soldiers from overtaking the house, because in that time, they didn’t have many rights. So Ella pretended to be the lady here and struck an arrangement with Sibby. They told the soldiers Ella was Westley’s wife and the baby his son.” Sandra laughed. “Worked well. Until he came home.”
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