Chapter Four #3
“Is there—can you tell if there’s another ghost here? Right now?”
He frowns. “In your shop?”
I nod, scarcely daring to breathe. He looks around quickly, eyes darting over the back corner without bothering to linger. My hope sputters and extinguishes.
“No,” he says slowly. His eyes crawl back to mine. “No, there’s no one else here.”
“That’s okay,” I say quickly, even though he doesn’t offer an apology. He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for an explanation, but I don’t want to unpack that particular hurt. “I have another question.”
He huffs, lips quirking up at the corners. “Of course you do.”
“Do you have a name, or do you prefer your … title?”
His forehead creases in confusion.
“Your name,” I say slowly. “Surely you have one.”
Or maybe he doesn’t. What do I know? My brain is still fourteen miles behind, eyeing this entire situation with thinly veiled skepticism.
A Ghost of Christmas Past. Haunting me.
A straight line appears between his eyebrows. “I haven’t mentioned it?”
I shake my head.
“My apologies.” He stands to his full height, only a handful of inches taller than me but somehow managing to seem more.
I tip my chin up to look at him, watching as a shadow passes behind his eyes.
He holds his hand out between us, almost painfully old-fashioned.
But then, I suppose he would be, wouldn’t he?
“My name is Nolan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I stare at his hand suspiciously. Last night he offered me his hand for an entirely different reason. “If I grab your hand, you’re not going to suddenly whisk me off to a ghost realm, are you?”
His chest shakes in silent laughter. “No. I’m not going to whisk you off to a ghost realm. I’m going to shake your hand with mine. This is an introduction, yes?”
Fair enough.
I slowly extend my hand toward his and he clasps my fingers gently, his big palm dwarfing mine.
His hand is slightly cold, calluses at the base of his palm.
I expect a jolt or a shower of sparks, but nothing out of the ordinary happens when we touch.
I’m not jerked to an alternate reality. No swirling portal of doom opens at our feet.
We stand there, shaking hands, at the front of my cozy little antiques shop.
“It’s nice to meet you, Nolan.”
His chin dips. “Likewise, Harriet.”
We continue shaking hands, staring at each other. His grip tightens against mine and the amusement slowly fades from his face. Instead he studies me like he’s looking for something, a furrow between his brows. I keep my face open, letting him look. I have nothing to hide.
Somewhere in the depths of the shop, a chair screeches across the floor.
I tug my hand away and cradle it against my chest. Nolan clears his throat.
“I talked to my supervisor, like you asked,” he offers in the resulting silence. He picks his coffee back up and takes a long sip. I try not to notice how he places his mouth right over the faint red lipstick mark I left behind.
“Oh, wow. I sort of forgot I demanded that last night.” Peppermint Harriet is a firecracker.
Amusement reappears in the lines of his face, softening his harsh angles. “I truly find it hard to believe that anyone thinks you need to stand your ground.”
“Yes, well. Like I said, I thought that was a dream.” I busy myself with wiping away the condensation ring left on the counter with the sleeve of my sweater. “What did your supervisor have to say?”
I imagine some ghostly apparition sitting on a throne, a long and billowing robe on her regal frame. Nolan kneeling at her feet in supplication. An ancient tome open on her lap, my name underlined twice.
HARRIET YORK, she probably boomed. DESERVES TO PAY PENANCE. MAKE HER SUFFER.
“She said mistakes aren’t made. If I’m haunting you, there’s a reason.”
I frown at the wet spot on my pale green sweater. I think of a cold night in the middle of December, my hands clenched into fists against my skirt. My mother’s face, anguished before she became angry.
“What are the reasons?” I ask.
Nolan raises an eyebrow.
“Like, what reasons do you usually have for haunting someone?
Give me an example, so I know what I might be guilty of.”
He huffs a breath, turning his eyes up to the tin ceiling in thought.
“There was a man once who kept raising the rent on one of his tenants until she could no longer afford her home, purely because she rejected his advances. Another who fired everyone who worked beneath him the day before Christmas.”
I flinch. “Oof.”
“There was a woman who kept calling the cops on the kids in her neighborhood who liked to play basketball. Another who consistently sent scam emails to her friends and family. Oh, and of course the father who never remembered his kid’s Christmas concerts.
Instead, he was at the casino, bankrolled by the family savings account. ”
I frown. “I haven’t done anything like that.”
“I guess we’ll see,” he says easily, but there’s a wariness there. A low hum of warning that tells me he won’t be pushed. Not on this.
I can tell he doesn’t believe me—that he thinks I’m hiding some big secret—but the joke’s on him.
My biggest secret is I sometimes leave my clothes in the dryer for over a week, continuously restarting the machine to ease the wrinkles that never seem to fully come out. I’m hardly the monster he thinks I am.
Except for one night. One mistake.
And I’ve already paid the price for that misstep.
“And how do you plan on judging me?” I ask slowly. I try to remember what happened in A Christmas Carol, but it’s a blur. A ghost with a turkey leg, maybe? A door knocker that came alive? I definitely remember a ghost with chains around his wrists and ankles, shuffling about.
I peer over the edge of the counter and look at Nolan’s legs. Two brown boots, slightly scuffed.
No chains.
“I’ll be your guide and together we’ll observe your memories. We’ll land in the ones that need examining and when you have your epiphany moment, you’ll be handed off to the next ghost. It’s a fairly simple process.”
“Simple.” A laugh bubbles out of me. “None of this is simple, Nolan.”
Nolan nods, the shadow of a smile appearing on his face. But it’s gone as quick as it arrives, a solemn look etched across the lines of his face. Either he’s had remarkably easy assignments before me, or he’s been doing this for so long he doesn’t realize what an absolute trip all of this is.
“It can be if you let it. What else are you doing right now?”
“Right now?” I glance around the shop. “Right now I’m working.” His mouth pulls into a flat line as his eyes scan the empty shop.
“Yes, I can see you’re very busy.”
Indignation straightens my spine. “I have hardware I need to organize. Some paperwork to catch up on. My trees—” I gesture in the direction of the two Douglas firs still standing at attention in the windows, their branches bare. “I need to tend to my trees.”
“Your trees will be fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“When I arrived, you were staring mournfully at a tiny bird. You’ve got the time.” He taps his cup against the counter twice. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Right now?”
He finishes the rest of his coffee, tossing the empty cup in the bin behind the register. “Yes, right now.” He gives me a stern look. “You’re resisting quite a bit for someone who is supposedly a good person. Do you have something to hide, Harriet?”
“No,” I say, defensive. Crap. That definitely sounds like I have something to hide. Which I don’t. “What if Sasha needs me? I can’t just disappear.”
“We’ll come back to this exact moment, down to the second. It’ll be like no time has passed at all.” He holds out his hand between us again, palm up. I take two steps back and hold mine against my chest.
Nolan sighs, fingers flexing. “Harriet.”
“I’m just—I’m nervous.” I exhale sharply. “What does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
I can hear more of his accent when he’s frustrated. A rough start and stop that rolls along the edges of his words. I wonder how it sounds when he’s angry or tired. If the same thing happens when he’s happy.
He doesn’t seem like he’s very happy.
I twist my fingers together. “Visiting the … ghostly portal, or whatever. Will it hurt?” I ask.
“No, it won’t hurt,” he says, his face finally softening in understanding.
“It feels—it feels like stepping into a dream.” He reaches for me and the tips of his fingers brush against the back of my hand, silently urging me to let go.
To trust him. To believe this extraordinary fairy tale my life has somehow become.
“Like falling asleep when you’re on a long and winding road and waking up somewhere else. ”
“Oh.” I blink at him, the tension abruptly leaving my shoulders. The way he described it, it sounds like something I want to do. “Have you considered a career in sales?”
“Not remotely,” he answers. He swallows, eyes searching mine. “You’ll be safe with me. You have my word.”
I worry my bottom lip with my teeth and release the tight grip I have on myself. My hands tremble. “You won’t let go?”
He shakes his head. “I won’t let go.”
“Promise me.” If I’m going to indulge this exercise, I want confirmation that I won’t end up in the eighth circle of hell. Or on the island from Lost. I’d die in 0.2 seconds if I saw a polar bear in the jungle.
Nolan steps closer. “I promise you, Harriet. I won’t let go.”
I could argue some more, find some reason to drag my feet. I’m still not sure how I ended up here, but I suppose seeing is believing. Nolan held up his end of the bargain. It’s time to hold up mine.
I suppose I always have believed in Christmas magic.
I extend my hand, press my palm to his, and together we disappear.