Chapter 18
“It was horrific,” said Casey. “How am I supposed to let go of that?” They’d been back at the store for over an hour, and Casey was still reeling.
“We’ve been over this. It isn’t yours to let go of. That wasn’t your Nate. Worry about your own Nate.”
“Why? What do you mean? What’s wrong with my Nate?” She felt dread rising up from her ankles.
Margo tutted. “Ugh! You’re killing my buzz. Don’t ruin my first-ever sleepover.”
The spirit had conjured a massive sleigh bed into the middle of the Christmas department and was bouncing up and down on it.
She was getting some good height too. All around them, the store’s Christmas trees showcased the myriad color choices and themes in which one might choose to decorate their own tree; the effect was rather like being in a very glitzy forest. At the end of the sleigh bed was the Christmas train set with its dark green steam engine pulling seven replica Pullman carriages through a miniature snowy village.
It peep-peeped loudly every time it passed by the tiny pub with the swinging sign that read: The Crooked Elm.
“Think of it as a bad dream,” said Margo breathlessly as she continued to bounce. “Nothing you can do about it, it’s totally Other Casey’s problem. Now put these on and stop complaining.” She flung a pair of red brushed-cotton tartan pajamas at Casey. Margo was wearing a matching pair in green.
Casey took them, noticing how soft they were but not feeling any better. “But I know that she’s out there somewhere in time making terrible mistakes and now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unknow it.”
“Listen, sweet cheeks.” Margo puffed. “We all have a role to play in this big old universe. Mine is to worry about the fate of humankind and to try to make it better by unfreezing hearts, one mean bastard at a time. Your role is simply to be the best version of your own self that you can be so that there is one less butt trumpet in the world for us spirits to worry about. And if Other Casey is out there being a twat in twenty-seven other realities, then that is all the more reason for you to be the best Casey there ever was in this one. It’s all about balance.
Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.
Now put your pj’s on so that we can get this party started! ”
She wasn’t going to win any arguments with Margo. “What if someone breaks in and I’m wearing fluffy nightwear?” she asked instead.
“Arrggghhh!” Margo groaned, throwing herself heavily back, flat onto the bed, and making a duvet angel with her arms and legs. “What if, what if, what if!” she shouted. “You spend so much of your time worrying about what might happen that you keep forgetting to live right now.”
Casey harrumphed. “Actions have consequences—you of all people know that.” Those pj’s did feel very soft beneath her fingers, though.
“Pah!” Margo barked out a laugh. “You wouldn’t know action if it bit you on the arse!
When you’re lying on your deathbed, would you rather look back on a series of bland moments from a life lived cautiously, or do you want to think, ‘Holy shit, I lived the fuck outta my life, I really gave that life a run for its money’? ”
“Somewhere in between would probably be ideal,” Casey retorted snappishly. She brought the pj’s to her nose and inhaled fragrances of cinnamon and orange. “Are these pajamas Christmas scented?”
“You betcha!” said Margo. Then she reached over the far side of the bed and came back up holding a plate piled high with chocolate gingerbread. “Come on.” She grinned. “You know you want to!”
Casey’s patience was wearing thin. “I don’t think you’re taking my feelings seriously.
” Her frustration was showing in the rise of her voice.
“The last two glimpses—three if we count the one where I end up living on a desert island with a lizard—have been pretty bloody traumatic if I’m honest. And that’s not even counting the merry shit show happening in my real life. ”
Margo huffed. “Sweetie, you need to learn to compartmentalize. Minister to the things that are within your power and set the others aside as lamentable but ultimately beyond your remit.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she mumbled. She’d had just about enough unhelpful advice from Margo. “You don’t have any real skin in the game; you’re not watching glimpses of your loved ones falling apart.”
“Oh, ho-ho-ho HELL NO!” Margo stood up on the bed with her hands on her hips. The plate of chocolate gingerbread slipped off the bed and fell to the floor with a clatter. Casey took a step back; Margo’s green eyes were glinting dangerously.
“No skin in the game?” the spirit continued.
The bed rose off the floor, and all manner of Sunday roast vegetables rolled out from beneath it and began to sizzle and spit.
“I was created with the sole purpose of loving humans so fiercely that I would do anything to save them from themselves. I am the mirror that the wretches stare into to see their greatest fears reflected back at them. You want to make this about who has more baggage based on glimpses? Huh? Would you like me to show you some of the shit I’ve seen?
” Margo asked in a voice that was both a challenge and a threat.
Smoke was beginning to rise off the shoulders of her pajamas.
Casey sidestepped a rutabaga that was boiling in its own juices.
Several small tornadoes whipped into being around the lower ground floor and began to spin violently through the food hall and homeware department, picking up jars of whiskey marmalade and boxes of glass baubles as they went.
“I’ve been dealing with some of the most uncaring, uncharitable, money-grabbing, mercenary scumbags the world has ever seen for literal millennia! And you think that’s ‘easy’?”
Casey had backed herself up against a life-size cardboard Nutcracker soldier.
“No,” she said in a small voice, and then squealed as one of the tornadoes whisked past her and tore the tartan pajamas from her grip.
Margo had reached the levitating stage of indignation; her green bed-socked toes hovered above the advent calendar duvet.
She really does feel things hard, Casey thought as a pile of vegetables caught fire on the carpet, turned black, and exploded into charcoal dust.
She took a deep breath, dodging a flaming Brussels sprout as it whizzed past her face.
“I’m sorry!” she called out, hoping that Margo wasn’t too far into the beyond of her rage to hear her.
“I’m having a hard time processing the glimpses.
It’s hard to watch things fucking up before my eyes and not being able to do anything about it.
I guess that’s how you feel but, like, times a million.
” Was it her imagination, or had Margo’s pj’s begun to smoke less?
“For what it’s worth, I think your feelings are valid and I’m in awe that it took you this long to lose your shit.
I’d have lost mine a thousand years ago. I’m losing it after three glimpses.”
The tornadoes slowed to a stop and collapsed onto their sides like spent spinning tops before dissipating.
Margo’s feet touched back down onto the bed and then she flumped down cross-legged on the bed.
The rage and bluster seemed to have drained out of her, and she looked sad and tired and a little bit like the woman who climbs out of the well in The Ring.
“I’m sorry too,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“That was unprofessional of me. It’s just, it’s a lot, you know?
Free will is a tough pill to swallow when you must watch people use it to hurt others.
I guess now you know how badly I needed a holiday.
” She gave a little hiccup laugh, then pulled a tissue from the box that had appeared beside her and blew her nose.
Casey moved slowly closer and, when she was sure there would be no more flaming potatoes coming her way, perched gingerly on the edge of the bed. “If you want to talk about it, if you think it would help, then I’m here for you.”
Margo sniffed loudly. “Really?” she asked through trembling lips.
“Really.” Casey gave her an encouraging smile.
“No one’s ever offered to listen to me before,” she said quietly. “I mean, they heed my advice when they realize their souls are in mortal danger obviously, but no one’s ever listened to me.”
“Maybe that’s why I can see you,” said Casey. “Perhaps the universe realized that you needed to be heard for a change.” She shrugged. “Or not. What do I know? A week ago, I didn’t even know that spirits were real; I don’t think I’m qualified to be second-guessing the universe’s motives.”
Margo looked up at her with big watery eyes. “Maybe we needed to find each other.”
Casey smiled. “Maybe we did. Can I have the pj’s back or did you burn them with your fiery fury?”
“You want to wear the pajamas?” Margo asked so hopefully that it made Casey’s heart squeeze.
“Yeah,” she said. “A wise woman recently told me I need to spend more time living in the moment.”
Margo smiled and looked away.
“Come on,” Casey cajoled. “Hand ’em over. I need some Christmas-scented pj’s in my life.”
—
It was peculiar to be wearing pj’s and sitting propped up against the fluffiest pillows she’d ever encountered, in a massive bed at her place of work.
She hoped to God that Margo was right about the cameras not picking them up or she’d be in big trouble.
Still, she had to admit, this was nice, and not only because the brushed-cotton sheets were as soft as kitten fur.
“So, Ajay…” Margo purred.
“What about him?”
“Oh, don’t play coy with me. Other Casey certainly liked the look of him, and even you can’t deny that it’s a heck of a coincidence how he keeps popping up in your glimpses,” Margo said, dropping another square of Turkish delight into her mouth from a gift box priced at ￡8.99.