The Spirits of Christmas Read online

  “She passed out,” Hannah reported, hovering behind Nora. Akira glanced at her. The old woman had never looked anything but hostile, but her scowl now held concern, not just annoyance. “It looked like some kind of a fit. She twitched and shook.”

  “Hannah says you fainted,” Akira reported. “And maybe had a seizure?”

  Behind her, she could hear Zane on the phone, giving the address of the house.

  “What the—” For a moment, Nora looked almost afraid. Then she lifted her chin high and said poisonously, “I have no idea what’s wrong with you. But I am not some gullible idiot. I don’t know why you want to scare me away, but if you’ve got cameras on this house, you might as well stop recording. You’re not going to see anything interesting.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Akira ignored her. She was trying desperately to remember what it meant that Nora was so much fatter than she had been. She’d been reading books about pregnancy. She knew she’d seen something about rapid weight gain.

  “Ooh,” Rose squeaked. “That’s so weird.” Akira glanced at her. Rose had her arm outstretched toward Nora’s belly and warm yellow light was flowing from her open hand toward the woman’s midsection.

  “I don’t remember.” Akira bit her lip, chewing on it uncertainly. She ought to know this. But she was almost more worried about what was happening with Rose. Should she be dragging the ghostly teenager away from Nora somehow? Or yelling at Nora to get away? Ghostly energy could be dangerous.

  But the glow didn’t look threatening. And this was Rose. She tried to remember what Dillon had told her about his other dimensional experience. Rose had managed to withstand the energy storm so maybe her energy was somehow different, either on another frequency or composed of different particles?

  “Preeclampsia,” Zane said from behind her. “High blood pressure.”

  “Yes.” Akira’s hands met, in a triumphant clap, before she clasped her fingers together nervously, as if in prayer. “You need to go to a hospital, right away,” she told Nora.

  She was no longer worried about Rose’s energy. The ghost girl had brought Akira back from the dead and had helped Dillon when he was lost in another dimension. Akira refused to believe that anything Rose would do could harm Nora and her baby. And although she didn’t know what was happening with Rose’s spirit energy, in the physical world she knew that Nora needed help.

  For the first time, Nora looked more vulnerable than angry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do,” Akira answered her. “You’re not stupid. You know something’s wrong. If Hannah can tell that you’re in trouble, you must know you are, too.”

  Nora paused. One hand rose to pull her light cotton robe closed at the throat. “I can’t leave Toby.”

  Akira froze. Oh, dear. Oh…dear. “His father?” she asked tentatively. Nora had said nothing about a partner or husband when they first met, but she’d assumed there must be a man somewhere.

  “Not available.” Nora pursed her mouth. “The baby’s not due until January. I’ll call my doctor in the morning.”

  Akira glanced at Zane, uncertain.

  “Nope.” Calmly, as if he barged his way into strangers’ houses every day, he urged Akira forward a few more steps and stepped into the house behind her. “Zane Latimer.” He introduced himself to Nora easily, holding out a hand for her to shake. “Do you have a bag packed for the hospital?”

  “I—” Nora fell back a few steps automatically and then drew herself up. She was just an inch or so shorter than Zane, Akira noted, impressed. It must be nice to go through life able to reach the top shelf. “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the police.”

  “You do that,” he said agreeably. “I’m not sure who’s on night duty this week. Maybe Tim? But I’m sure he’d love to hear from you. Job gets boring, after all. You want my phone?” He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and held it up as if he’d pass it to her if she nodded.

  “You people are insane.” Nora spat the words out, face flushed.

  “Oh, dear,” Rose murmured. “I think maybe it’s a bad idea to make her mad.”

  She passed through Akira to step closer to Nora. Akira shivered convulsively as Rose’s energy sparkled inside her, but as Rose moved away, she stared after her, startled. Ghost energy felt like ice usually, a chill so cold it was painful. Rose felt more like a shot of whiskey, burning its way through her veins but leaving a soothing buzz in its wake. Whatever it was, it was unlike any spirit energy that Akira had ever felt before.

  “What are you doing, Rose?” Akira asked as the ghost first touched Nora’s expanded midriff, then wrapped an arm around Nora’s shoulders as if half-hugging her.

  “I’m not sure.” Rose sounded dreamy. She started humming under her breath. “Calming, I think.”

  “Good,” Hannah said unexpectedly. “If the girl’s blood pressure is too high, getting excited can’t be good for her.”

  Nora did look calmer or possibly dizzy. Her eyes were almost unfocused, as if she were listening to Rose and no longer entirely present.

  Zane slipped his phone back into his pocket and shot a questioning look at Akira. In the distance, Akira could hear a siren. “What’s going on?” he asked quietly.

  “Rose. Some kind of ghostly energy. I think she’s trying to lower Nora’s blood pressure.” Akira breathed her response, voice barely above a whisper, not wanting to break into Nora’s reverie.

  Zane’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Did you know she could do that?”

  Akira shook her head. This was all new to her. Maybe spirit energy worked on a spectrum, like electromagnetic radiation? Rose’s new ghostly energy might be a different frequency than the energy that Akira had experienced before. Like infrared versus ultraviolet. If only she’d found a way to measure spirit energy.

  But she pushed thoughts of the science away. At the moment, their first priority was to get medical attention for Nora, and to decide what to do about the small boy presumably still sound asleep somewhere in the house. And maybe later Rose would let Akira run some tests.

  *****

  Where the hell was Rose when she was needed? Akira thought irately. She wanted that magic calming potion back. Like, desperately, like, right now. She wasn’t sure who she wanted it for, though, whether it was for Toby or herself.

  Toby paused.

  Akira held her breath.

  “I—I—I—” he gasped. “I want my mama!” And then the wails started again.

  “Spank him,” snapped Hannah. “Shock him out of it.”

  “I’m not going to hit him because he’s scared,” Akira hissed at the ghost. “Why would that make him feel better?”

  He was like a siren, like a wind-up toy that went on and on and then trickled down, and then started up again. Akira found herself wondering why his throat didn’t hurt. If she cried like that, it would be painful. Shouldn’t the pain make him stop?

  She pressed her back against the wall, appreciating the solid feel of it behind her. This had to be a nightmare. It had seemed so logical when Rose accompanied Nora in the ambulance and Zane followed them both to the hospital.

  He’d never met Toby; Nora, who seemed completely dazed by then, would be happier about leaving Toby with a strange woman than a strange man; and he could handle Nora’s paperwork with a wave of his GD administrative wand and/or the platinum credit card in his wallet.

  Akira had agreed. But she’d been hoping, despite all logical evidence to the contrary, that Nora would be home before Toby woke up. A quick check at the ER, some pills to lower her blood-pressure, and why not?

  No such luck, though.

  “Fine, if you won’t, I will.” Hannah strode across the room to where Toby was sitting up in his twin bed, sobbing. “Quit crying or I’ll give you something to cry about,” she growled.

  He looked at her for a silent second as he gulped in a breath and then the heartbroken sobbing started again.

  She raised her arm, lifting it high. “I mea
n it,” she threatened.

  “Don’t you dare!” Akira raced across the room, interposing herself between Toby and Hannah and glaring. “If you even try, I will . . . I will . . . I will exorcise you!”

  “Ha,” the old woman snorted. “As if.”

  Akira’s glare didn’t change.

  A smug smile crept across Hannah’s lips. “Worked, didn’t it?”

  Akira blinked as she realized that behind her, Toby had fallen silent. Tentatively, she turned. Toby was watching, eyes big, thumb locked between his lips. “I won’t let her hurt you.”

  He pulled his thumb out of his mouth. “She not dere.” He leaned forward and waved his hand through Hannah, then promptly tucked his thumb back into his mouth and sat back.

  “Oh.” Akira felt stupid. She should have realized. If the ghosts weren’t quite real to Toby, a hit of their energy wouldn’t sizzle him like it did her.

  “Offer him food,” Hannah said. “Quick, before he remembers he’s sad.”

  Akira opened her mouth to object—if the boy was scared about losing his mother, food wasn’t going to solve his problem—but then she paused. Food often did make people feel better. “Are you hungry?”

  He nodded, still wary.

  Ten minutes later, in the kitchen, Akira pinched the bridge of her nose. Those were real tears dripping down Toby’s face, real snot coming out of his nose, but it wasn’t as if she could un-put the spoon in the yogurt. She’d had no idea that breaking the smooth surface meant that the food would become inedible.

  “I should have warned you,” Hannah said. “He’s one of that kind. My boy was like that, too. Every little thing needed to be just right.”

  “Toby, sweetie, it’s the same,” Akira tried desperately. She took a bite of the yogurt. “See? Yum.”

  “No, no, no,” Hannah groaned as Toby sobbed harder. “That won’t do it. Offer him ice cream.”

  “What?” Akira said, sticking the spoon back in the yogurt. “He can’t have ice cream for breakfast.”

  “Oh, please,” Hannah snapped. “There’s no difference between ice cream and that crap.”

  “Ice cream has more fat, more sugar, less calcium.” Akira waved the spoon, then took another bite of the yogurt. Toby might not want it, but she and Henry needed food, too, and it tasted delicious to her.

  “So what? Some days you need ice cream.” Hannah nodded toward Toby. He’d stopped crying for the moment and was again watching them with big brown eyes.

  Akira sighed and took another bite of yogurt. “Ice cream?” she offered.

  A cautious smile lit up Toby’s face. He nodded.

  “I can’t believe you fed your kid ice cream for breakfast,” Akira muttered to Hannah as she watched Toby happily spooning up the last melted drips of vanilla.

  Hannah scowled. “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t? But—” Akira nodded toward Toby in protest. She’d listened to Hannah, thinking the older woman knew what she was talking about. She felt deceived.

  “After Nick was grown and gone, I took in fosters,” Hannah said. She fell silent for a moment, looking lost in memory, then shook her head and went on brusquely. “Ice cream for breakfast once in a while doesn’t hurt them. Kids don’t figure getting it once means they’ll get it all the time and showing you’re willing to do whatever you can to make a bad day better means a lot. I wish I’d learned sooner how much little treats matter.”

  Akira looked at the old woman. In repose, the harsh lines woven by time creased her cheeks and pulled her face down, but her eyes weren’t as mean as Akira had thought they were.

  “We haven’t found Nick yet,” Akira said cautiously. “But Meredith left him a message asking him to call me.”

  Hannah shook her head, her eyes on Toby. “He’s never coming home. He hated it here. Always dreaming. Always working on how to get away.” The muscles in her face worked for a moment and then she sniffed hard and brushed a hand across her nose. “But don’t think I’ll let them stay here,” she said firmly. “I don’t want company.”

  While she was wondering what she could say to reconcile Hannah to Nora and Toby’s presence, Akira’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out automatically and her lips curled up as she read Zane’s text. Baby girl. Five pounds, eight ounces. Doing fine. Home soon.

  “We’re going to find him,” she told Hannah. “I don’t know how, but we will.” They had to. Nora needed a safe place to live. And even if Hannah couldn’t hit Toby, living with an angry ghost wouldn’t be good for either him or his brand-new baby sister.

  *****

  “So James is really splendid,” Zane said, a red train in one hand, a blue train in the other. “But Edward is the oldest train?”

  “James dinks he is spyendid,” Toby told him patiently. “But he has to pull de cars, too.”

  “Okay.” Zane nodded, adding, as he put the red train down on the track. “Good work ethic there.”

  From her prone position on the hard sofa, hands cradling her cheek, Akira smiled sleepily. Zane, her sweetheart, her love, her future husband, was encouraging a work ethic? That was unexpected. Not that Zane was opposed to work; he just thought it sensible to minimize it when possible.

  She let her eyes drift closed. It had been a late night, or rather a very, very early morning, and if it weren’t for the two ghosts arguing behind her, she could easily fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Zane and Toby earnestly discussing the rules of train-dom, of which there were many. But Rose and Hannah’s debate had too strong a hold on her.

  “You’ll like it,” Rose claimed. “It’s not like you think it is, but it’s nice.”

  “You didn’t like it. You ain’t there.”

  When Hannah got mad, her southern accent got a lot stronger, Akira noted, eyes still resolutely closed.

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Course it does!”

  “I died when I was seventeen. I never left my house after that. I never grew up. You got married, you had a kid, you did stuff. You should be ready to spread your wings and learn how to fly now.”

  “That’s just stupid,” Hannah scoffed. “You expect me to believe everyone who dies gets wings, like some kinda angel?”

  Rose stamped her foot. “That’s a…a whatdyacallit, a synonym. A comparison. You don’t need wings over there.”

  A metaphor, Akira thought, but she didn’t say the words out loud.

  Hannah sniffed. “I’m not going and you can’t make me.”

  “I don’t want to make you. But you can’t make people’s lives miserable over here.”

  “All they have to do is get out of my house,” Hannah snapped. She stomped across the room and stood between Zane and Toby.

  Akira squeezed her eyes shut. Hannah was so stubborn. Her moment of softness over breakfast had disappeared after Akira had mentioned Nick. If anything, the news of Nora’s baby girl had made her more determined than ever. She wasn’t losing control. Her energy wasn’t spiking the way that of some ghosts did. But she was pulling in power from the atmosphere, making it colder around her, and then using that energy for petty acts of malice.

  “That’s so weird,” Zane muttered. Akira opened her eyes and looked across the room to where Zane and Toby sat on the floor next to a complicated layout of wooden train tracks, Hannah still standing between them.

  “Stop dat.” Toby ordered.

  “Stop what?” Zane asked, sounding perplexed. He picked up a brown freight car and turned it over, examining its fastener. “It looks as if the magnet reversed polarity temporarily. But I don’t know how that’s possible.”

  “Not you,” Toby told him. “It’s da mean yady. She is baking da train.”

  “Baking? The mean lady?” Zane asked.

  “Hannah,” Akira said, sitting up and swinging her feet around to the floor. She glared at the old woman who glared back at her.

  “Ah.” Zane set the train back down on the track carefully. He looked at Toby and then at Akira. “Is that why it’s
so cold?”

  She nodded briefly.

  “She does dat,” Toby reported matter-of-factly. He picked up one of the cars, a green passenger car, and tried to link it to the freight car before shaking his head.

  “Seriously, Hannah?” Rose said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re going to pick on a little boy?”

  “I want him out! I want all of you out!” Hannah said. “This is my home and I don’t want people here.”

  “You okay, little man?” Zane asked, putting his hand on Toby’s arm. “You look cold. You need a sweater?”

  “You gave us two weeks to find Nick, Hannah, and our time is not up yet,” Akira said firmly. “You leave Toby alone.”

  Two weeks. She should have bargained for more time. Two weeks would be the day after Christmas. Maybe Nora would be willing to move out if she now believed that the house was haunted? But finding a new place to live and packing for a move over Christmas while taking care of a newborn baby and a toddler on her own would be miserable, even if she let Akira and Zane help. No, Akira couldn’t count on that.

  She wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Rose was right. Hannah should move on. This wasn’t life. Unlike Rose, who thoroughly enjoyed her existence and was endlessly fascinated by the world around her, Hannah seemed trapped, tied here by regrets and sorrow.

  “What’s she saying?” Zane asked, sounding distracted. Akira glanced at him. He had a strange expression on his face, as if he was listening to far-off music, his head tilted to one side, his eyes puzzled.

  “Can you hear her?” Akira asked, startled. That would be different.

  “No, no.” He shook his head, attention back in the room, and grinned at her, but the expression didn’t entirely make it to his still narrowed eyes.

  “She wants us to go.”

  Zane stood in one smooth, fluid movement. “Let’s go, then.”

  “What?” Akira protested. “We can’t take Toby away.”

  “Sure we can,” Zane said easily. Whatever had been bothering him seemed to be gone as if it never was. “Nora and the baby will be in the hospital overnight. Toby can stay with us, and Hannah can have the house to herself.”