Christmas Spirit

by Amy Garvey

  —And how do you stay in this world?

  I drink far too much. But I suspect that the alcohol preserves me. Ha ha.

  —I think it makes you behave badly. You tried to rough up Sam.

  So I did. It takes enormous effort for a ghost to do that. But I underestimated my remaining strength—or your whiskey. It has a potent effect on a soused spirit, you see.

  Charlie was both appalled and fascinated by the supernatural exchange and didn’t look up when Sam padded into the room. He cleared his throat and she jumped in her chair.

  “Oh God. You startled me.”

  “Sorry. What are you doing?” he asked calmly. “Checking your e-mail?”

  “Yes. You’re not going to believe this—”

  “Whatever it is can wait. C’mon back to bed.” He reached out his hand.

  Charlie shook her head. “Look over my shoulder. I can’t save this and it may disappear forever. You have to read this.”

  His forehead creased with a sleepy frown and he scrubbed at his face to make himself wake up a little more. “Charlie—”

  “I mean it,” she said urgently. “Read this!”

  He came around in back of her, leaning over her head with his hands on the back of her chair. “Are you writing this? I don’t understand.”

  “No, no, this isn’t like that book that just—appeared. This is Daniel, writing directly to me.”

  “Who is he again?”

  “The lover in the story and in real life, long ago. But I think he got into my computer and somehow tricked me into writing about him and Temperance.”

  “Your long-lost, great-something Temperance?”

  “Yes!” She scrolled up to the beginning, her hand on the mouse, feeling his hand cover hers when she reached the first line of the exchange and take over for the scrolling down.

  The monitor in its altered state cast a gray light on his face as he read, his expression increasingly serious. He came to the last line from Daniel and looked down at her.

  “Was your e-mail account up on the screen when he contacted you?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Close it out. Cancel it. Now.”

  “But—”

  He straightened, folding his arms across his robed chest. “Just do it, Charlie. Before Daniel figures out some other way to get inside your head.”

  “Okay. I hope he can’t hear us.”

  Sam blew out his breath. “I don’t think so. Right now I’m pretty sure we’ve got the genie in a bottle and I’d like to keep him there.”

  “You mean he’s actually inside my computer?”

  “The monitor, definitely. I’m not sure about the computer. But if he travels via electrical energy, he could move from one to the other. Any other peripherals connected to it? Printer? Hard drive?”

  “No.”

  More of Daniel’s prattle was appearing on the screen.

  “Don’t stop to read it. Do what I said. Pull up the e-mail account and cancel it. He may end up in a giant global server somewhere but you’ll be rid of him. Let their IT guys deal with it. They’ve seen worse.”

  Charlie clicked into this and out of that, and checked every box that made sense to her, working fast, knowing that Daniel’s ghost was underneath what she’d pulled up.

  Talking away. Expecting an answer.

  She checked the last box marked Cancel All and signed herself out for the last time.

  The gray blurriness vanished and a blue screen took its place. Across it scrolled a final message.

  Fortunately, it was from BlinkLink, which provided her e-mail service and besieged her with endless ads into the bargain. Dear Valued Customer ...

  She didn’t bother to read the rest of their sayonara form letter.

  “Done.” She twirled in her chair and looked up worriedly at Sam. “Do you really think we trapped him?”

  The screen was flickering again.

  “Shut the computer down,” Sam said. “He is in it. Now!”

  Another couple of clicks and that, too, was done. She unplugged the entire setup for good measure as he nodded his approval.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “We wait and see. If he doesn’t come back, then it worked. But you are going to need a new computer. And this one is going to have its hard drive extracted and melted down by a geek I know just in case.”

  “I can’t afford a new computer!”

  “Guess what? Kevin liked the article. I was just checking my e-mail, too. He’s going to run the blob and the blonde on the front page and he’s shooting me a bonus check that will cover it, plus allow me to take a month off until January to be with you.” He smiled down at her. “Christmas is coming. Ho ho ho. I think I solved your ghost problem.”

  “You said we’d have to wait and see.”

  Sam grinned and swept her up in his arms. “Just in case I’m right, you can thank me in advance.”

  “Oh—” She tried a few cute protesting kicks and then she settled down, digging the experience. “All right. I can see why Butch was so into this. Being carried around is great.”

  “Shhh.” He maneuvered her through the door.

  “We’re in my house, remember? Who’s listening?”

  He got her down the hall and through the bedroom door and they stayed up for the rest of the night talking about everything under the sun, bathed in moonlight all the while.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next day saw Charlie back at Pages, helping Lillian with inventory and generally making herself useful. The older woman looked a bit frazzled, her pewter-colored hair spiking every which way, and Charlie felt a little guilty for not helping her more when Lillian had been the best neighbor in the world.

  When she was not lugging cartons of books and Lillian wasn’t seeing to the occasional customer, she filled her in on the events of last night. Lillian listened with wide eyes.

  “So that’s what happened to Temperance. Oh, my. Not a happy ending, was it?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “But that part of Daniel’s story sounded real. It was hard to tell what he was making up and what could have been true. All I had to go on was what I read of that old diary, and you and I weren’t in the archives for very long.”

  “Do you want to go back?”

  Charlie shook her head firmly. “No.”

  Lillian gave a wistful sigh. “But what a story. You could write it, you know.”

  “I’d rather not. Let Temperance rest. I got the idea she was a bit of a drama queen, so she probably would prefer if no one knew what happened. Exit, stage left, amidst a howling blizzard. Way to go, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  Charlie’s tone was a lot more firm than Lillian’s. “If anyone else looks into that box and reads her sister’s diary, Temperance will be remembered as a strong-willed beauty who vanished with her lover. Where did she go? What happened? No one knows.”

  “I love plots like that. They sell,” Lillian said regretfully.

  “Hey, you can write it. That material is in the public domain.”

  Lillian shook her head, and her silver chandelier earrings tinkled faintly. “No. She’s your long-lost relative, not mine. I just wouldn’t.”

  “Thanks, Lillian.” They both watched a customer come in and go straight to his favorite section, natural history. He took out a book on New England and began to peruse it.

  “So far there’s been no sign of Daniel anywhere in the house. We sat in the spare room. That strange heat didn’t come back and Sam didn’t get touched. Except by me,” she said cheerfully, “later and somewhere else. I still don’t like that room.”

  “What about your computer?”

  “It’s not only unplugged, I cut the cord so no one can start it up, even by accident. Sam knows a guy who can destroy the hard drive and that’s the end of that. We hope,” she added.

  “So you actually talked to Daniel.”

  Charlie shuddered. “It was just plain weird knowing that he was, like, in the mac
hine. Sam got to be my hero again. I was too confused to know what to do. Anyway, that’s the story.”

  Lillian just shook her head. “Families. What goes around really does come around, doesn’t it?”

  By afternoon, they’d turned the store over to Jamie, having decided that a bracing walk on the beach would be a good idea.

  It wasn’t.

  The air was so cold that their teeth were chattering under the mufflers wrapped around their mouths and their foreheads hurt.

  “Let’s g-go someplace w-warm,” Charlie said.

  “If the air gets any f-fresher, we’ll freeze.”

  Lillian nodded numbly and they trudged off the windswept sand of the beach and eventually into a tavern with a view of it. They unwrapped themselves like mummies, feeling just about that dry, and ordered two foamy glasses of stout and hot appetizers. Then two more glasses of stout.

  “Delicious,” Lillian said, licking foam from her upper lip. “But so filling.”

  “Mmm. It’s nice in here,” Charlie replied. “So cozy.”

  The afternoon light cast lengthening shadows as the winter day drew to a close. They had no idea of how long they’d been there, feeling too well-fed and a bit buzzed. The conversation begun in the bookstore had continued, and Lillian seemed to be growing a tad sentimental on the subject of families.

  To be expected, Charlie thought, sipping her second stout. Lillian didn’t really seem to have one. Daydreaming, she sensed the older woman was studying her and looked up. Yikes. Lillian had tears in her eyes.

  “Can I tell you something, Charlie?” she asked softly.

  Double yikes. What could it be? Charlie couldn’t very well say no. “Sure,” she answered.

  “When you moved in next door, it felt—it felt like a circle had closed. You know I knew your father, of course.”

  Charlie nodded. It seemed to be true confessions time. A couple of drinks, a couple of women in a secluded booth—it happened.

  “Well ...” Lillian took a deep breath, followed by a huge swig of stout. She set the foamy glass down, then picked it up again and drained it. “Here goes nothing.”

  Charlie propped her chin on her hand. Whatever Lillian was going to say, it might take her a while to find the words. All she, Charlie, could do was wait.

  “He hadn’t married your mother yet when he met a friend of mine. A flower child. A free spirit. And he got her pregnant.”

  Charlie sat up very straight. Her hands dropped into her lap and twisted. Lillian was getting straight to the point.

  “She called herself Astral Moony, but no one knew what her real name was. Anyway, she had the baby and took off. No one ever heard from her again.”

  “Was I that baby?” Charlie asked, her voice strangled.

  Lillian nodded. “But I took care of you. Until your father met your mother. So your father is your father and your mother is your mother, because she raised you and loved you and Astral didn’t.”

  Charlie was speechless. It was hard to imagine her conservative father, who was pure Prescott, consorting with a flower child. But she trusted Lillian, who had no reason to lie to her.

  “I was waiting for the right time to tell you. I’m sorry,” Lillian said. “It’s a bombshell, I know. But there you go. You were literally left on my doorstep.”

  “Was I a good baby?”

  “An angel.” Lillian began to sniffle. “Never a minute of trouble. I didn’t want to give you up, but you weren’t mine.”

  “I was for a little while.”

  “Not long.”

  “Did anyone else in Edgartown know?”

  Lillian shook her head. “Astral had you at a mainland hospital and brought you back here. She was, you know, kind of a flake, so no one asked many questions. Sometimes being really different is the same as being invisible. People didn’t want to know, put it that way. But I never thought it was a good idea not to tell you.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Charlie said sincerely. “But wow. That’s a lot to take in.” She sat back, completely amazed.

  “Your dad, Michael, was thinking about telling you and then he died unexpectedly. Your mom never did decide.”

  “So that left you.”

  Lillian bit back a sob. “Yes. And when you and I started going through the archives and really talking about family, and it seemed to make you so sad, all I could think was ... no more lies. Ghosts shouldn’t have that kind of power over the living but they do, sometimes.”

  “I found that out,” Charlie said wryly.

  “Anyway, dear, the past and the present can’t be separated.”

  “I remember you saying that,” Charlie murmured. “I understand.” She thought for a while in silence. Actually, Lillian’s revelation was going to help her understand a lot of things.

  “There’s one more thing,” Lillian said. “You must be wondering why I told you now. It’s almost Christmas and the holidays are hard enough. Why didn’t I wait?” she asked rhetorically.

  “I don’t mind,” Charlie reassured her.

  Lillian gave her a wistful look. “This was going to be your first Christmas on your own. And I didn’t want you to think that you didn’t have family. I mean, you don’t. People pass away and run away and those ties break, whether we want them to or not. But ...” she hesitated. “You still do have me, Charlie. For always. Think of me as your fairy bookmother or something. Or your once-upon-a-time aunty. Can you do that?”

  Charlie pressed her lips together, feeling tears well in her own eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “I think so. Thank you, Lillian. For the brownies and cookies and the good advice and friendship. And for everything that I never knew you did for me, most of all.”

  It was another hour before they left and went their separate ways. Charlie bundled up again and wandered around town, thinking and thinking and thinking. Tired out, she called Sam on her cell from the doorway of a store that had shuttered for the season and asked him to meet her in town. Between the two stouts and Lillian’s astonishing revelation, she was feeling a little unsteady.

  He heard it in her voice. “You okay, Charlie? Did something happen?”

  “I—ah—may have sprained something. I’m not sure.”

  “What? Where does it hurt?”

  My heart. My soul. What she told him was a complete lie. “My foot.”

  She felt a surge of happiness when she saw his familiar, broad-shouldered body leaning into the stiff wind to come and get her. His hands were jammed in his pockets and the material of the big parka billowed back against his muscular frame.

  He looked stalwart. He looked strong enough to carry her all the way home. And that was what he did, not listening to her protests.

  They were in front of her house and she could see the Christmas tree through the window. The rest of the lights in the living room had been turned off. But the tree wasn’t quite the same. He’d added something. Sam caught her look and asked, “Notice anything new?”

  “The star,” she said happily. “It’s gorgeous. Did you buy that?”

  “Yup. It’s a top-of-the-line Twinklerama, no less. I know it’s only going to be up for another week but I was going to splurge on it anyway. Then the guy at the hardware store gave it to me for half off because I bought so much fix-it stuff. This house needs work. And you need a rest.” He adjusted her position in his arms. “And you’re going to loll around while I slave and elevate that foot and keep an ice pack on it until I say you can take it off.”

  She wasn’t really listening, just looking at the tree, then at his rugged face, framed by the hood. “That actually sounds romantic. Like we’re a couple.” She could fake a sprain for an evening, no problem. Eventually she would tell him what Lillian said. They had time.

  He hoisted her higher and said indignantly, “Yeah, we are. That’s why I came back like I said I would. That’s why I came to get you. That’s why I’m going to fix up this place.”

  “Then what?” she murmured, clinging to him as he managed the latc
h with one hand without setting her down. He used the toe of his boot to nudge the front door completely open.

  “That’s why I’m carrying you over the threshold. Practice run,” he added quickly. “But I think this you-and-me thing is going to work out fine.”

  She got the front of his shirt good and wet with happy tears as he took a huge step and just stood there in the entryway, still holding her. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Does that foot hurt?”

  “No,” she said honestly. “Not at all. Put me on the sofa. Let’s take it from there.”

  The light of the Twinklerama was all they needed.

  THE MULLED WINE THAT CHARLIE NEVER GOT TO MAKE

  1 bottle of red wine (a fruity merlot or full-bodied

  cabernet works well)

  ½ cup brandy

  ½ cup sugar

  1 cinnamon stick

  6 or 7 whole cloves

  orange zest

  In a large saucepan over low heat, dissolve the sugar into the brandy, then add wine and spices. Heat gently until steaming for about two minutes and pour into warm mugs.

  Orange zest is simply very narrow, very short slices of orange peel. You can buy dried zest in a jar in the spice section but to make it yourself, use a vegetable peeler to take fine shreds from the peel of a fresh orange. Avoid the white material (this is called the pith) inside the peel because of its bitterness. Use only the peel, which is rich in aromatic oil. And you don’t need much—a few tablespoons of fresh orange zest are enough for the whole saucepan. Serves three or four.

  WICKED GOOD EGGNOG

  2 cups whole milk

  ½ cup dark rum

  ¼ cup sugar

  ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

  ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

  ½ cup whipped cream or more, to taste

  In a mixing bowl, dissolve the sugar and spices into a little of the rum and beat well. (The alcohol will bring out the flavor of the spices.) Add the rest of the rum. Add the milk. Then add whipped cream to taste, fresh or canned, and fold gently into the milk mixture to give the eggnog body and pour into big glasses or mugs. Serves two.