The Spirits of Christmas Read online

Where should she put her hands? Akira wondered. Under the arms? Or sideways under the legs? Weren’t you supposed to hold babies’ heads up? Something about their necks being wobbly? Oh, dear. She really wasn’t sure she was ready for this. But as she lifted the baby out of the car seat, one hand scooping low, the other pressing against the baby’s back and cupping the soft little head, a breathless smile spread across Akira’s face. The baby was so light, so little, so warm and alive. Feeling her breathe and her tiny wiggle of protest at the movement was both amazing and terrifying.

  Carefully, still kneeling, she turned to hand the baby to Nora and paused. She’d been so engrossed in the baby, so focused on what she was doing that she’d been completely oblivious to what was going on behind her. Automatically, she pulled the baby closer, cradling her as she took in the sight of Nora locked in the embrace of a tall stranger, Toby hanging on his leg like a happy monkey, Hannah standing frozen next to the table that held the tiny Christmas tree, and Zane, a cheerful grin curving his lips, in the doorway.

  She’d been right.

  Zane had found Nick.

  And Nick and Nora weren’t strangers.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Nick pulled his mouth away from Nora’s long enough to ask, but didn’t give her a chance to answer, kissing her again with renewed intensity.

  “Dada, Dada,” Toby chanted. “Dada, we moved. To Fyorida.”

  Nora was half-crying, half-laughing as Nick finally let her go and pulled her down onto the couch. She cradled his face in her hands, staring into his eyes and stroking his cheeks as if she couldn’t believe she was touching him. “I knew you’d come home if I told you and it was your big chance. I didn’t want to screw it up. But what are you doing here? How did you get here? What about the tour?”

  “I didn’t want to miss Christmas with the two of you,” he said. He didn’t look away from Nora but his arm opened to welcome Toby as the boy clambered into his lap. “I was on my way to New York.”

  “But what about the New Year’s shows? You only had another two weeks to go.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I have to go back for those.”

  “Nick! Are you insane?”

  “Yes,” he told her, before kissing her again. “Although not as insane as you. When were you going to tell me about the baby?”

  Nora’s eyes were bright but her expression contrite. “Her due date was right after you got home and Toby was so late—I figured you’d have a couple weeks to get used to the idea. I didn’t think I’d be having her without you.”

  “Mama had a baby in her tummy,” Toby offered.

  Nick rubbed the top of Toby’s head, leaving his other hand on the back of Nora’s neck as he rested his forehead against hers. “I was hoping to convince you to come back with me for the last few shows.”

  “To Australia?” Nora’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Okay, now I know you’ve lost your mind.”

  “Nope,” he said, “Just filled our bank account. We sold out all our shows in Sydney. Tom’s talking money with record labels, serious money. Dropping a few thou on a spectacular New Year’s Eve would have been cool. Guess maybe not this year, though, huh?”

  Nora’s smile was radiant. “Not this year,” she agreed, looking toward Akira and the baby. Akira smiled back at her and stepped forward, handing over the baby with only a little regret at losing the moment.

  Zane came to stand next to her, wrapping his arm around her and dropping his chin onto the top of her head.

  Akira leaned back against him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

  “Nora didn’t mention him,” Zane answered her quietly. “When I realized that he was Toby’s father, I didn’t know if she was hiding or running away from him. I made Lucas come with me to check him out. If he was any threat to Nora . . . well, Hannah would have been out of luck.”

  “You could have told me what you were doing,” she complained half-heartedly. It was hard to be angry as she looked at the little family on the couch, all doting on the baby.

  “I didn’t want to take the chance on upsetting Hannah until we knew for sure.”

  Akira’s lips quirked up. She might not like angry ghosts, but after their experience this summer when a desperate ghost had caused Akira’s heart to stop beating, Zane was even warier than she was.

  “And I didn’t realize it would take so long,” he added.

  “Why did it?”

  She felt more than heard him yawn above her. “Moving target. When I first touched Toby, Nick was somewhere around Atlanta. By the time I headed out, he was north of Charlotte. I realized that he was on a plane pretty quickly, but I didn’t think we’d have to go all the way to New York to find him.”

  New York. Akira shook her head. Only Zane would think it made sense to hop on a plane and fly hundreds of miles away to check on whether a total stranger was a safe person for another stranger to see. “I’ve never been to New York.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised. “Hmm, maybe we should have our own spectacular New Year’s.”

  Akira started to turn into him, lifting her face to be kissed. She didn’t know whether she wanted to go to New York for New Year’s but she loved that he wanted to give it to her. Before she could finish turning, though, a long drawn-out gasp from across the room had her spinning back out. The sound was filled with a pain so deep that it hurt Akira just to hear it. Still standing by the tree, Hannah had her fist clenched against her mouth, tears in her eyes.

  What had happened?

  “Dat is heah name?” Toby was asking, putting a gentle finger on his sister’s cheek.

  “It was my mother’s name,” Nick told him. “Your grandma. You never got to meet her, but you would have liked her. And she would have loved you.” His tone held a hint of humor, but also a thickening of grief.

  “Dat is da mean yady’s name, too.”

  “My mom wasn’t mean,” Nick said, frowning. “She was tough. Strict and—well, she could be fierce. You followed her rules or else. Like some other people I know,” he added with an exchange of glances and a smile at Nora.

  Ha, Akira thought. She bet Nick had tried to feed Toby more than once.

  “But she was absolutely fair. And she loved me. A lot. She did her best for me and she…” Nick stopped speaking and Akira could see that he was choking up. He swallowed, blinking hard a few times, before continuing. “I wanted to make her proud, but I never got the chance.”

  Akira pressed her lips together. She didn’t think of her own mother often. She’d only rarely wondered what that absent stranger might have been like. But for perhaps the first time, she wondered now what her mother thought of her and whether she would have been proud.

  “Stop talking, Dada,” Toby ordered. “You are making da mean yady sad. She is cwying now.”

  “Tell him I was always proud of him. Always,” Hannah ordered Akira, her tears rolling freely down her face. “Please.”

  Relatives. Akira hated these conversations, but what could she do? With Zane a comforting presence against her back, she quietly relayed Hannah’s message.

  “Ha.” Nick’s smile was wry. “That’s a nice thought, but she hated my music. Oh, she supported it—she paid for lessons, came to my school concerts, was right there for me. But she—” He put his hand up and rubbed his chin, hiding the telltale quiver of his lips.

  Akira frowned, confused, before she realized that Nick thought she was offering soothing platitudes, not telling him exactly what his mother was telling her.

  “The mean yady,” she said dryly, then corrected her own pronunciation, with a hasty, “lady, is your mom and she’s been waiting for you to come home so she could apologize.”

  She waited. Would he be an arguer? Would he want proof? Would he order her out of the house like Nora had? Would he tell her she was crazy and needed help?

  Nick looked her straight in the eyes, his brown eyes steady on her own, and then his glance flickered up to Zane’s face. He looked down at Toby. “Where’
s Grandma, Toby?”

  Toby pointed at the side of the Christmas tree as Akira’s eyebrows shot straight up. How unexpected. The corner of her mouth twisted in amused realization as Zane whispered in her ear, “He did grow up here, remember. Live in Tassamara long enough and you do develop an open mind.”

  Later, although not much later, she walked out of the house, hand-in-hand with Zane, feeling a quiet contentment.

  “So is Hannah going to move on?” Zane asked.

  Akira shrugged. “Pretty soon, probably. But I think she’ll stick around to see a little more of her grandchildren first.”

  “Living in a haunted house isn’t so bad,” Zane said tolerantly, before adding with a grin, “Having a ghost around sure added to the excitement this week.”

  Akira paused, one hand on the door of her car. “I’m not so sure Rose is a ghost anymore,” she said slowly. She’d tried to talk to the ghost girl yesterday, but Rose had been entirely unhelpful about the energy. All she’d wanted to talk about was seeing the baby be born. About mid-afternoon, she’d wandered off, the way she often did, Akira thought possibly to visit Nora in the hospital again.

  “What does that mean?” Zane asked, frowning.

  “I wish you could have seen her,” Akira said. “This golden light poured out of her like she was some kind of intra-dimensional energy conduit.”

  “Intra-what?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve definitely never seen a ghost do anything like that before. It was amazing. I’m thinking that ghost energy, or maybe it should be called spirit energy, is on a spectrum, like electromagnetic radiation. Ghost energy, the kind that I feel, could just be a band of the spectrum, a short part of it. Like ultraviolet on the electromagnetic spectrum. And the rest of the spectrum could contain—I don’t even know. Other forms of energy. Other frequencies.” Akira’s words were starting to spill over one another in her enthusiasm.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Zane put a hand up in laughing protest. “I haven’t slept in two days, love. You’re making me dizzy. What do you think Rose is, if she’s not a ghost?”

  “I think…” Akira paused, before saying, somewhat primly, “I think the technical term might be angel.”

  Zane opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then Zane put his hands on either side of Akira’s face, cupping her cheeks, and bent his head to hers, taking her lips in a strong, searching kiss. “That felt real,” he said when he finally lifted his head.

  She laughed up at him, unlocking her hands from behind his neck. “Oh, I’m real.”

  “And you just said that you think Rose is an angel?”

  She nodded, a little uncertainly, searching his expression for any sign of doubt or disbelief or a dawning awareness that she was insane. But none of those were there.

  He nodded. And then with a raised eyebrow, said, “You know, it’s been a long couple of days. You think Henry would be up for red meat for dinner tonight?”

  Akira put a hand across her belly. “I think he might like that.”

  “How about we go home, spend the day in bed, and finish it off with steak on the grill?”

  Akira put a hand on his shirt front, one finger playing with a button. “Did you ever finish the wedding invitations?”

  A pained looked crossed his face. “Ah…about that…”

  “I’ve had plenty of sleep,” she interrupted him. “So how about we go home, you sleep, I address invitations, and then when you’ve had enough sleep, we barbecue. And then we spend the rest of the weekend in bed?”

  Zane grinned at her. “Woman after my own heart,” he whispered as he bent his head to kiss her.

  Man who holds mine, she thought, as she kissed him back.