Noelle

The Reaper Chronicles 7

By Apryl Baker

Noelle

Copyright © 2024 by Apryl Baker.

All rights reserved.

First Print Edition: December 2024

Limitless Publishing, LLC

Kailua, HI 96734

www.limitlesspublishing.com

Formatting: Limitless Publishing

ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-685-7

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Dedication

For everyone who’s lonely during the holidays. Please remember no matter how bad it is, there’s always hope.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

The cold is growing on me.

Mom, Cecily, and I have always hated the cold. My distaste of the snow and cold comes from getting lost when I was a little girl in Germany. I was out in the wintry woods until Dad found me. I don’t remember much except for being scared, alone, and freezing. It made me hate the cold. Mom and Cecily would just rather be warm.

Jordan and Cecily are chatting away while Eli drives us to town. I flip on the radio to try to drown out all their incessant chatter. Today is a day I’d rather have the quiet over the noise. The upcoming Christmas holiday has my nerves on edge. It’ll be the first Christmas without Dad. Yes, we cut him off because he chose the Army over us, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it hurts. Not seeing him laughing while we decorate the house or smiling when he attempts to bake cookies is hard. I love my dad. I may not like him all that much right now, but I still love him.

Mom and Cecily are dealing with it in their own way, the same as I am. Mom has thrown herself into any charity she can find to keep herself busy while Cecily seems to want to ignore the situation. That doesn’t work. It will eventually rise up, and the emotions will choke her. I’m hoping her therapist gets her to talk about her feelings. Mine did. It’s why I can recognize the emotions trying to swallow me as depression. I miss my dad. He hurt me, but I miss him. It’s okay to still love him. My therapist helped me to see that.

“You good?” Eli asks softly. I can barely hear him above the Christmas music blasting.

I nod, not really wanting to talk.

He frowns but keeps his eyes on the road. It’s been snowing for a couple of hours, and the roads are not great. It probably wasn’t a smart idea to drive to town, but we were all bored. Jamie, our newly adopted brother, is at his friend’s house for a sleepover, so we didn’t even have him to entertain. Jordan decided he was hungry, and that led to Eli saying he could eat, but I wasn’t in the mood to cook, so they called in an order to the Coffee Shoppe. And now we’re all driving along a snowy roadway. I wanted to stay home, but after being taken by the Army from said home, no one would let me.

Dusk is just falling as we hit the outskirts of town, and the place is lit up with Christmas decorations. It’s beautiful. Like a real winter wonderland. The closest Cecily and I got to a white Christmas was back in Germany, and neither of us really remember it. We were too young.

But here, we’re getting to experience it up close and personal. Jacob’s Fork, West Virginia, is what is deemed four seasons country. You get the gambit of spring, summer, fall, and winter here. Right now, it’s twenty-eight degrees outside according to the Jeep’s temperature gauge, the snow is falling, and the buildings are ablaze with lights of all colors. It’s honestly breathtaking against the mountain backdrop. Like magic. This is the kind of place you dream about when it comes to Christmas. Mom and Cecily are in love with it. And maybe I am a little as well.

So, as I said, the cold is growing on me. And not just because of the Christmas backdrop against the snow, but because we’ve finally found a place to put down roots and let ourselves have friends and people who have become family. I love this town, and I guess I’ll have to love the cold and the snow with it since it comes with the people who matter the most to me.

And I’ll be here for at least the next four years, as Eli and I are going to be attending the university here in town. Appalachia University, or Wolfpack U, as it’s affectionately called by the locals, will be our home once we graduate and start the fall semester. We’re staying in the dorms, though, since we want to experience college life. And I got a full paid scholarship to the school thanks to my years of making sure I got good grades. I’m set.

If only I didn’t feel like my world was ending. It’s weird. Why has this depression struck me now when I’ve been working on my feelings with my therapist? Not sure what she’s going to have to say when I explain this to her at our next appointment. She’ll probably have a field day with it, in all honesty. The woman doesn’t let you hide from anything. Which is probably why Gramps suggested her.

We pull into the parking lot, and Eli stays back while Jordan and Cecily go into the diner to pick up our food. He’s frowning.

“What’s wrong?”

“I…” He knows something’s wrong. He can feel what I’m feeling when my emotions are strong. He says I’m mentally shouting at him even though I don’t mean to.

“Don’t lie, either. I know something’s bothering you.”

“I don’t know, and that’s no lie. I just feel…depressed.”

“Depressed?” He says the word like it’s foreign to him.

I nod. “It sort of came out of nowhere. I woke up a few days ago feeling like I was being sucked down a dark drain. I think it might have to do with missing Dad. He wasn’t always around for the holiday, but he always called. We blocked his number, and I guess I’m sad there’s no chance he’ll call this year. Even though he put his precious SCU before us, I still miss him.”

“He’s your dad,” Eli says simply. “You love him, and that’s okay because he is your dad.”

“I know. That’s what I’m telling myself, but it doesn’t help this feeling of darkness swallowing me.”

“Darkness?”

“That’s what it feels like.”

“What do you mean by darkness, though? Is it just sadness, and that’s how you’re describing it?”

“Well…yes, but no.”

“Explain.”

“Have you ever felt yourself losing consciousness?”

He nods.

“That’s what I mean. It’s that sense of the dark devouring the light until you’re sucked into it and everything goes black. You lose yourself and go unconscious. That’s what I mean.”

“You feel like you’re losing yourself to the darkness?”

“For lack of a better explanation, yeah.”

“That does not sound like depression.”

“How would you know? Have you ever suffered from it?”

“I did when I was brought back from the dead and dumped here in a stranger’s home and then told I could never see my family again. I suffered with depression for the better part of a year, Shortcake. I know it better than most.”

I’m not sure what to say to that.

“What you’re describing doesn’t sound like what I went through.”

“But my depression may not manifest in the same way yours did,” I say gently. “Different people suffer different symptoms.”

“Have you talked to your therapist?”

“It’s only started in the last few days. I don’t see her until January.”

“Maybe call her and see if you can get in earlier.”

“It’s Christmas break, Eli. She’s closed her office until after the first of the year. I’ll be fine. I just need to keep myself busy and not think about Dad not being here.”

“If it’s that, not thinking about it doesn’t help. It only makes it worse trying not to think about it.”

“How did you manage, then?”

“I took it one minute at a time, especially on Christmas Eve. It was the one day when we were all together and Dad wasn’t out chasing a case. Mom demanded he be home for at least Christmas Eve even if he had to be gone on Christmas Day. Gramps didn’t celebrate Christmas, so when it rolled around, I spent the day with Jordan and his mom. That helped me more than anything. They understood it was my first Christmas without my family, and they knew Marco. So, they took me in and made me feel welcomed.”

“His mom is great.” I’d met her after my sister went missing back in the summer. Jordan’s mother is fierce, but kind. She’s very much like my own mom.

Eli smiles slightly. “Yeah, she is.”

“So, what say we don’t worry so much about my depression unless it becomes a problem and focus on making sure we all have a great holiday and we convert Gramps to actually celebrating. Mom is dragging him to church on Christmas Eve as well.”

Eli snorts. “I’d love to see her try.”

“You think she won’t? Molly Banks gets what Molly Banks wants. He’s not going to stand a chance.”

Laughing, he cuts off the Jeep. “Come on. Let’s go see if they have any of that candy cane hot chocolate. I’m told they even have a diabetic version for you.”

Like a non-sugared-up hot chocolate hits the same. Never, but I’ll try it anyway. It doesn’t hurt to see if they can create something that doesn’t taste like crap without the sugar. The bakery does it, so maybe my favorite place to eat can as well.

“I’m not forgetting about this ‘depression’ of yours just because I’m not harping on it. Promise me if it gets even a fraction of an inch worse, you’ll tell me.”

“Not like you won’t know if it does.”

I expected him to grin, but he gets even more serious. “I only feel your emotions and your thoughts if the situation is dire. That’s why I’m worried now, Ella. Me being able to detect this darkness of yours tells me something is really wrong.”

And now I’m more worried than I was.

“But I’m here, and we’ll figure it out. Right now, let’s get food and haul it back home for everyone. Gramps and your mom should be back by the time we arrive.”

“He’s going to appreciate the grease.”

“You realize the grease won’t hurt him, right? He’s Nephilim. He can eat it all day and he’ll never have a heart attack.”

“He still needs to eat healthy. Just because it doesn’t hurt him doesn’t mean he needs to live on junk. He’ll get obese.”

“He won’t.”

“He might.”

Shaking his head, he gets out of the car, comes around, and opens my door. “Let’s go, Shortcake. I want to get home before the roads get much worse.”

I have this feeling we should have stayed home, but I get out. It’s my own sense of doom causing my pessimism. I need to get over it. Shaking my head to clear it, I take his hand and let him lead me inside.

We’ll be home soon, and then this feeling of despair will lessen. He’s right. We’ll figure out what’s going on together and deal with it.

But first, I’m going to try this non-sugary version of candy cane hot chocolate.

Chapter Two

The diner is my favorite place ever. It looks like it hasn’t been remodeled since the seventies, but that’s on purpose. The owners love the look of an old-fashioned diner and had it redecorated over the summer. Black-and-white checkered floors were replaced with a dark concrete look, which I think looks more industrial than vintage, but it still works. The walls are a soft cream color now, but the booths are newly upholstered in a dark orange. The brand-new quartz countertops are still green, same as they always were, but able to take more of a beating now without being damaged as easily as the old ones. The stools along the counter are orange as well, but way more comfortable than they used to be.

The owner has family who are diabetic, so there are diabetic friendly items on the menu. Still, I’m not sure about this non-sugary candy cane hot chocolate. In my experience, anything chocolate that isn’t full of sugar is just bitter.

“Where’s Caroline?” Cecily nods to the waitress as we all take our seats. “You can invite her over to watch Christmas movies tonight.”

Eli and Jordan both grimace. Hallmark is Mom and Cecily’s favorite channel from November through the first of the year because it’s twenty-four-seven Christmas movies. I’ve been known to binge it here and there, but not anything like those two. Eli’s girlfriend, Caroline, loves Hallmark too. She and Cecily have bonded over their love of all things Christmas.

“She’s spending Christmas with her dad and his parents in Colorado. Her mom got Thanksgiving, and he got Christmas this year.”

This deep ache settles around my heart. Even though I blocked Dad’s number, I left my email open. He hasn’t even tried to contact me. Cecily says she hasn’t heard from him either. I kinda hoped he’d fight to stay in our life, but I guess the Army really does matter more to him than we do. It’s sad and painful all at once.

Eli’s shoulder bumps mine. “How about we find a Christmas-themed scary movie instead of more sappy romances?”

“A Christmas slasher movie sounds good.”

“Ugh,” Cecily mutters, but I catch Eli shaking his head at her out of the corner of my eye. He can probably feel how much pain I’m in right now.

“There’s a couple, but I can’t think of the names of them right now. We’ll look them up when we get back to the house.”

“Here we are!” The waitress smiles broadly. I recognize her from when I’ve been here before. Her name is Saidie Walker, and she’s one of Alex Reed’s friends, if I’m not mistaken. “Four candy cane hot chocolates, with one being diabetic-friendly.”

Her hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, but it doesn’t lessen the effect of her gray eyes and blonde hair. It reminds me of being outside in the sunshine, its warmth on my skin and the feeling of happiness. Mom always says true beauty is on the inside, and looking at Saidie, I can see it shining out of her very being.

“Well, go ahead and try it,” she urges me. “Ms. Jolene made it special just for you when she saw y’alls order come in.”

Leaning down, I sniff the mixture, and it doesn’t smell bad, but it certainly doesn’t smell like candy canes either. She hums and waits, so I pick up the mug and take a sip.

I was right, but I swallow it and smile. “It’s good.”

Her smile widens. “I’ll go tell Ms. Jolene you liked it even though you didn’t.”

“I…”

“Girl, please. I tasted that stuff earlier and spit it out. If that’s what you have to drink on the regular, I’m so sorry.”

Laughing, I put the cup back down. “Could you bring me one of her sugar-free pumpkin spice lattes? Those are actually pretty good.”

“Can do. Your order should be ready in a few minutes. We’re a little backed up with the storm and all. People are calling in orders left and right.”

“Take your time.” Jordan waves her off, inhaling his own hot chocolate. “This is good.”

Cecily shakes her head. “Do you ever stop and just enjoy your food…or drink?”

“I enjoy it just fine.”

“Has he always been like this?” I ask, watching him down his mug of scalding liquid. “How does he have taste buds left?”

“As long as I’ve known him, he’s been like this.”

“This needs some marshmallows.” Cecily puts her mug back down. “It’d be perfect then.”

Mom always put marshmallows in hot chocolate. It’s how Cecily learned to drink it and now thinks hot chocolate isn’t great unless it has marshmallows in it.

“Are you and your mom coming over for Christmas dinner?” I push my cup of liquid yuck away from me.

“Yeah, she’s grateful your mom invited us. She has to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year. She wasn’t going to have time to cook until after Christmas. Which I told her was fine, but I’m glad she’s not stressing for once.”

Jordan’s mom works herself to death to make sure they have everything they need. I’m glad she and Mom have become such good friends. I think they both needed a bestie. They’re good for each other.

Looking around, I see a ton of the locals having dinner and an even longer line of people waiting for takeout. This place is always so busy. I’m glad they’ll be closed on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. They deserve a break. We’ll be making our usual lasagna Christmas Eve dinner starring Mom’s special Christmas lasagna. She puts the kitchen sink in there, but I always steal a few pieces of pepperoni while she makes it. All the noodles are bad for me, but the other ingredients aren’t. It’s one of the few exceptions I make when it comes to my strict no-carb diet. Whole-grain noodles are gross.

“Earth to Ella!” Cecily waves a hand in front of my face, pulling my attention back to the table. “What is wrong with you? That’s the third time today I’ve asked you something and you’re spaced out.”

“Nothing. I’m just tired. If you recall, I wanted to stay home.”

She frowns, not believing my BS for a second, but her attention is caught by something else before she can call me out on it. Or someone, rather. Cole Walker and his girlfriend Clementine come through the door followed by his two best friends, Jackson and Leo. Her eyes land on Leo, and her frown deepens. She likes him. I’ve seen her fascination with him grow from afar over the last few months, and for good reason. She’s his mate, but because she’s still in high school, he’s steered clear of her. We haven’t told her either, because I want her to experience life without the stress of a mate who she may or may not choose when she’s older. She has that choice. Sometimes I wonder if we’re wrong to keep the truth from her. It might make everything easier for her.

I don’t know. Gramps says if it’s meant to be, it’ll be and not to worry about it. But I can’t help but worry if she’ll be mad at me. I don’t want her to think I kept it from her maliciously, and if this mate thing is as deep and true as I’ve been told, her anger might know no bounds.

Leo’s gaze is drawn to her right away, and he nods. He understands his limits and that she’s a little afraid of him. She’s standoffish of most guys after she was kidnapped by her boyfriend and held hostage for days. The only two she trusts are Jordan and Eli. Leo was with Cole when they found her. He remembers the shape she was in and won’t do anything to harm her either physically or mentally. His sole purpose in life is to protect her, and for that, I’m grateful.

Cole looks over and grins, and they all steer toward us, with Leo staying in the back.

“Well, if it isn’t our new quarterback. Coach told me you signed the declaration letter.”

“Yeah. I sorted everything out, and it all worked out in the end.”

“Like we’d let you go anywhere else.” Cole snorts. “If you’d told me about your situation, we’d have found a way to resolve it.”

Eli finally told Cole what was keeping him from declaring for Wolfpack U. He and Gramps discussed it and thought it would be best to let the Alpha of the school know what was going on since he still had to be careful around Ava. They’re able to be a family again, but the outside world can’t know Eli and Ava are siblings. It’s easier to remain really close friends. His family agreed.

“I don’t know. Auburn and LSU were sounding tempting. It doesn’t snow down there.”

“Not true,” Jordan said. “It snows in the south from time to time.”

“Not often.”

“Well, Coach is crowing about it. Our QB2 right now isn’t so great. I’ve been working with him, but he’s got a long way to go before he earns that position.”

“Does that mean he’ll be the starting quarterback as a freshman?” Cecily asks.

“Unless Coach finds a transfer student better than him, which is impossible. I’ve looked at all the transfers, and none of them come anywhere near Eli’s skill with a ball.”

Eli smiles, taking in the praise with grace. Eli can be cocky and arrogant, but he’s also humble when it comes to his natural talent as a football player.

“Here you go.” Saidie pushes her way through the shifters and sets several bags down and hands me a large to-go cup with my coffee steaming inside. “I even put extra spice in it for you, Ella. Ms. Jolene says it won’t hurt you.”

“The kind she uses doesn’t.”

“You guys headed home?” Cole yawns and moves so Jordan and Cecily can get out of the booth.

“Yeah. Looks like the storm is picking up.”

Leo frowns. “The roads are worse than they were ten minutes ago. Maybe you should stay in town tonight.”

“No, we promised Mom and Gramps we’d bring them dinner.”

Leo’s green eyes settle on Cecily at her remark. “I’m sure they’d rather you be safe than have a burger to eat.”

“We’ll be fine. Eli’s a good driver.”

“We can find you rooms at our dorm if you want,” Cole offers. “They’re mostly empty right now.”

“If I feel like I can’t make it, I’ll turn around and take you up on the offer.” Eli stands and pulls me out with him. “You guys take our seats.”

“You sure?”

Eli nods at Cole. “Thanks, man.”

I have this heavy feeling in my stomach. I want to take Cole up on his offer, but at the same time, I don’t want my sister to be uncomfortable. Being around Leo makes her very uncomfortable.

And that feeling follows me out the door and settles into my gut like a heavy rock.

We shouldn’t be in this car right now.

But I don’t know if it’s just my own sense of sadness and depression or if it’s a feeling I should pay attention to.

Eli starts the Jeep and backs up, pulling out of the parking lot. “Leo’s right. The roads are worse than they were. Maybe we should stay in town tonight.”

“It’s only fifteen minutes, Eli. If you go slow, we’ll be fine.”

He looks over at me, and I shrug. We should be fine as long as he’s careful.

“Buckle your seatbelts,” he says and turns the Christmas music back on, leaving the volume low. He told me music helps him concentrate, especially when he’s driving in bad weather.

We’re quiet as we make our way back to the house. The roads are rough, but I’ve only felt the Jeep slide once. Four wheel drive comes in handy during the winter, but even a four-wheel drive can’t combat ice. You have to be slow and steady.

“What’s that place?” Cecily asks, pointing out the window.

I look up and see an old house sitting back from the road, the vegetation taking over the driveway. The place looks rundown and like it’s a hundred years old.

“That’s the old Miller place. It’s been empty for about sixty years or so. The family died in a house fire on Christmas Eve.”

“That’s awful.”

Dying is awful to begin with, but on Christmas Eve? That’s worse. Christmas is about miracles, and love, and joy. To feel only fear and pain on that night, I can’t even imagine how horrified the family must have felt.

“Why did I never notice it before?” Cecily mutters. “We’ve been by here hundreds of times.”

Jordan shrugs. “I forget it’s there most of the time. Place blends in with the surroundings.”

I look back as we pass by, and I can imagine the place lit up, a family sitting by the fireplace or decorating the tree. They never knew the horror about to descend upon them.

“Watch out!” Cecily screams, and I look up, seeing a woman standing in the road. Eli swerves, and the Jeep skis over the road, the wheels failing to stick to the ice as Eli tries to control the vehicle. The SUV jolts when we hit something, and my mind scrambles to make sense of what is happening as the Jeep bounces and rolls, going over the guardrail. The Jeep flips, rolling down the mountainside. I hear Cecily screaming as the world around me is tossed and turned upside down.

My head hits the window, and the glass shatters as we come to a stop at the bottom of the mountain. Jingle Bell Rock is playing softly in the background, the snow falling outside, and it’s incredibly silent. So silent it’s scary.

Blinking, I try to call out to Cecily, but I can’t. I can’t move. The feeling of being trapped settles into my soul, and I try to fight, to get free, to get out of the car, but I can’t move. Memories of being tied down assault me, and I fight to push them back, to remember I’m here and not back at the Black Site.

Cecily, I remind myself. I have to make sure my sister is okay. I take deep breaths, but it hurts to breathe. Why can’t I breathe? Panic sets in.

Slow breaths, I tell myself. Slow, shallow breaths. I’m doing my best to calm down when something outside the Jeep moves, and I look toward it, my gaze blurry and unfocused.

The headlights flicker, and I blink, staring out into the night at the woman standing there. Long, dark hair is flowing down her back, and she’s looking right back at me with eyes as dark as the night. Blood drips down the front of her white dress—or is that my blood dripping down into my eyes?

She comes closer, and I try to speak, but I can’t.

Her mouth opens, and this horrible screeching starts.

She’s screaming.

My head explodes in pain, and it finally goes dark.

Blessed silence.

Chapter Three

“Ella, can you hear me?”

The sound of sirens almost drowns out the voice, but I hear it and blink my eyes open. My head hurts.

“There you are.”

Jackson, Cole’s friend, is staring down at me looking more worried than I’ve ever seen him.

“We’re trying to get you out, but I need you to stay still.”

Stay still? And get me out of where? I look over and see Eli. He’s still as stone, and his eyes are closed. Blood pours down his face from a cut right above his eyebrow. Everything comes back in a rush. We hit something and went rolling. And then that woman standing in the headlights.

“We need to get them out!” Leo yells. “The Jeep’s leaking gas.”

That’s not good. Even though Jackson said to stay still, I try to sit up, but I can’t. I’m trapped by the seatbelt. This insane fear wraps around me. Ever since being strapped down and tortured by the Army, I can’t tolerate even the thought of being bound, and that’s what I’m feeling right now.

“Calm down, Ella,” Jackson soothes. “I’m going to get you out, but you have to be still. You’re hurt, and the more you move, the more you could injure yourself.”

“Cecily,” I wheeze. It feels like there’s this pressure on my chest, and I can barely breathe.

“Leo’s got her.”

“What happened?” someone shouts.

“Accident,” Cole yells back, and I look up to see him staring down at me next to Jackson. It’s then I realize the Jeep is on its side. “We already got two out, but Ella and Eli are trapped. The front end is shoved up against their legs.”

“Let us in. We’re trained to get them out.”

“No offense, Willy, but you’re not a shifter. You don’t have the strength to push the front end out.”

“He’s right.” Sheriff Ethan McReynolds appears above. “Can you two crawl in from the back and push it out?”

“Yes, sir. It’s what we were already planning on doing. Leo, go to the hospital with Cecily. You’re no good here.”

There’s a low growl from somewhere.

“It’s not a slight. Your mate is unconscious and hurt. You need to be there. Go.”

I try to pull air into my lungs, and it’s so hard.

“Ella, calm down.”

“Can’t breathe.”

“Let the paramedics in…”

“No, we have to get them out. The Jeep is leaking gas.”

Ethan starts cursing. “Get in there.”

Cole and Jackson disappear, and seconds later I hear them climbing in through the back. Jackson’s dark hair comes into view.

“Why are you Banks girls always getting into trouble?”

I shrug, and my body seizes in pain.

“Yeah, don’t do that. I think you dislocated your shoulder.”

“Eli…”

“Cole’s got him. You just worry about you. We have to move the front end off your legs, darlin’. It’s going to hurt like a bitch. Scream if you need to.”

“Ready?” Cole asks as he maneuvers himself around Eli as Jackson does the same for me.

“One, two, three…” Jackson starts, and then I hear metal screeching, and pain flares to life.

“Stop!” I scream, unable to bear it.

“What?” Jackson leans over and lets out a string of curses. “Her foot’s caught. We’ll rip it off if we don’t untangle it first.”

“Hurry,” Cole says as Jackson dives down toward the floorboard and takes my foot in his hand. “This is—”

“Going to hurt,” I guess.

He smiles slightly and then takes a deep breath and yanks. Searing pain rips through my foot, but at least it’s free. They start pushing again, and I can literally see the car heave as they push everything back to where it’s supposed to be.

“Eli…”

“Don’t worry about him,” Jackson says sternly and uses a knife to cut my seatbelt. “I’m going to hand you out the front windshield to Ethan. Then I’ll help Cole with Eli.”

I nod, knowing arguing will only cost time and they’re worried about the gas. I don’t know why. The vehicle isn’t running. Maybe they know something I don’t.

Ethan grabs me and hauls me out, where I’m swarmed by the paramedics and put onto a stretcher to be carried up the mountain. They’re asking me questions, but it’s hard to pay attention. Everything hurts, and I can’t breathe.

“Tension pneumothorax,” one says. He sighs. “We have to let the air out, Ella. It’s going to hurt.”

Of course it is.

As soon as we clear the mountain, they rush me to the ambulance, where they get to work. The woman gets supplies, and I flinch back from the scalpel she’s holding.

“I’m sorry, honey, but if we don’t do this, you could die before we reach the hospital.” She gives me an apologetic glance, and then they cut my shirt open. She slices into my side, and her fingers delve into the cut, forcing a scream out of me, and memories assault me of this very procedure being done on me while strapped down to a metal table. I do my best to fight, but I’m too weak.

“Easy, almost done.” Something is shoved into the wound, and I hear the rush of air. “There, that better?”

Yeah, I knew it would be. Doesn’t lessen the trauma response associated with it, though.

They work for several minutes to control bleeding and to assess my injuries. Neither say much as they work, but I’m acutely aware of when Eli is brought up the mountain. He’s still unconscious. Cole and Jackson are carrying him on the stretcher with the EMTs running behind them. His ambulance is parked next to mine, so it’s easy to see his condition. And it’s not good.

“What is that?” I gasp when I finally get a good look at him. Something is sticking out of his stomach.

“A tree branch,” Cole says grimly. “We were afraid to pull it out and had to break it so we could pull him out. That’s what took us so long.”

“Calm down,” Jackson soothes. “He’s a Supe. It’ll take more than a tree branch to… Ella…Ella!”

I shake my head as everything blurs and bile rises in my throat.

“Her pupil’s blown,” the male paramedic says. “We have to go.”

I feel the world shift as the gurney is picked up and put into the back of the ambulance.

“I’m coming with her,” Jackson says. I’m glad. I don’t want to be alone. He takes my hand when he sits down. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I’m not so sure. Sitting beside him is that same woman from before. Only he and the lady paramedic don’t seem to see her. A ghost. Of course it’s a ghost.

She’s lovely. Dark brown hair and chocolate eyes stare at me, her expression forlorn and sad. The white dress she’s wearing doesn’t have blood on it. Must have been my own blood obscuring my vision.

“Help me roll her on her side,” the woman shouts, and I blink, trying to understand why everything is shaking. “She’s seizing, and if she vomits, we don’t want it getting into her lungs.”

I’m having a seizure? It doesn’t feel like it.

The woman reaches over and cups my cheek in her hand, the touch painful. She smiles, but before I can scream, she disappears into the haze of dimming lights. I claw my way out of it. I’m not going to pass out. Something about this woman is off. She feels dangerous to me.

“Good girl,” Jackson soothes, whispering against my ear. “You did real good, baby girl. Just stay calm. We’ll be at the hospital soon.”

“Ghost…” I manage to get out.

Jackson looks up and around. “I don’t see…” he says and then trails off, realizing he wouldn’t be able to see it. “Is it a dangerous ghost?”

I don’t know if the nod I try for works or not, but I guess it doesn’t matter. If no one but me can see her, there’s nothing they can do to protect anyone.

“No, don’t close your eyes,” the paramedic says. “I need you to stay awake, Ella.”

But my eyes are so tired. I don’t want to sleep, but I do want to close my eyes. Going unconscious is not what I want to do.

“Good girl,” she says. “We’re here.”

The ambulance comes to a stop, and the doors are thrown open. A multitude of people in scrubs and gowns are waiting outside as the gurney is taken out of the back of the ambulance.

The woman starts rattling off a list of injuries as I’m rolled inside and taken to a trauma room, where more nurses are waiting.

“We have to stop meeting like this, Miss Banks.”

The ER doctor who has seen me every single time I’ve come in is standing there. For the life of me, I can’t remember her name.

“Her pupil’s blown. She needs a CT before anything else,” the paramedic says.

The doctor nods. “Agreed. Think you can stay awake for me, Ella?”

I don’t know. I’m so tired.

“It’s okay if you can’t. We’re going to take care of you. I haven’t seen you through everything else to lose you now.”

Jackson’s worried face invades my line of vision.

“Cecily…”

“Your sister’s already been taken to surgery. Her spleen ruptured. Now let’s get you to CT and see how badly you’re hurt.”

Jackson’s fingers leave mine, and I feel bereft, but my body starts shaking again. Only this time I can’t fight it and succumb to the darkness eating away at me.

Chapter Four

When I wake up, Gramps is sitting by my bed, dozing in the chair. His snowy white beard has either gotten longer or his head is hanging so far over, his hair appears to have partially disappeared into his beard. He looks so tired, but then I feel as tired as he looks. Like way more tired than I should. And my head is killing me.

It’s only then I notice I’m not at home. I’m back in the hospital… Oh, crap! The accident. Eli…Cecily… “Gramps!”

He comes awake with a start. His gaze goes everywhere and then lands on me. There’s such a look of relief on his face, I have to wonder how banged up I really am.

“Thank God,” he breathes out and takes my hand. The small movement sets off shards of pain up and down my arm. He winces when I flinch. “Sorry, sweetheart. You dislocated your shoulder. It’s going to hurt for a few days.”

I remember them saying something about that.

“Cecily? Eli? Jordan?”

“Are fine. Everyone’s out of surgery and doing well. Eli and Cecily are in the same room, actually. Your mother is with them now. I’ll go switch with her, and she can come see you. We’ve been worried.”

“Am I okay?”

“You are now.” He smiles slightly. “Your brain was swelling. It’s why you were seizing. They had to go in and relieve the pressure by drilling a hole in your skull.”

My hand immediately goes to my head, and sure enough, there’s a bandage there.

“The bleeding resolved itself without major surgery, thankfully.”

“So, my brain was injured?”

Gramps nods. “It gave us all a start. Eli was in surgery and couldn’t help. We had to have faith in the doctors.”

He doesn’t put much stock in doctors. Gramps is an old world Supe. He trusts the healing power of the paranormal world over that of the medical field whose job it is to heal people using science and medicine. I am firmly in the doctors’ camp. I grew up trusting them. They know what they’re doing and when to ask for help if they need it.

“I’m okay, though?”

He nods. “You’re awake and you’re talking. You might have a headache, blurred vision, nausea, since you do have a severe concussion from getting your noggin cracked when your head basically shattered your window.”

Ouch. No wonder my head hurts so much.

“Eli and Cecily?”

“Your sister ruptured her spleen, and they had to remove it. She also sprained her wrist. Aside from a multitude of cuts and bruises, that was the extent of her injuries. I’ve told that girl time and time again to wear her seatbelt in the back seat. If she’d been wearing it, she wouldn’t have gotten tossed around when the Jeep went rolling, and she’d still have her spleen.”

I know for a fact he’s not blaming Cecily for her injuries. He’s angry and upset because he’s worried. Still, though, if he says that to her, it might cause her to think he’s blaming her.

“Gramps, don’t say that to Cecily.”

He frowns.

“She’s been through enough this year without believing the one adult man in her life blames her for something that wasn’t her fault.”

“I don’t think it’s her fault.”

“I know that, but it sounds like you do, so please just don’t yell at her over this. I will point out the next time we get in a car that she should always wear it no matter if she’s in the front or back.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “Why are girls so much more complicated than boys? Eli would know I don’t blame him. Trust me, I’m going to ream that boy out for not paying attention to deer in the road.”

“Deer?”

“You hit a deer.”

“No, we didn’t.”

“I think the dead deer would beg to differ.”

Frowning, I think back and try to remember the seconds before the impact. Cecily screamed, and it wasn’t a deer I saw.

“I didn’t see a deer, Gramps. I saw a woman standing there.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah. We hit her, and then when the Jeep finally stopped rolling and I came to, I saw her in the headlights. She was young, mid to late twenties, maybe. Long, dark hair, a white dress with blood on it. Or that might have just been the blood dripping down into my eyes, I don’t know. But I saw her. I’m pretty sure she was a ghost.”

“A White Woman.” Gramps sighs heavily. “Where did you wreck, specifically?”

“We’d just passed the old Miller place.”

He stands and starts to pace. “I’ve suspected this for years, but no one who’s survived a crash out by that place remembers a woman. They always remember who or what they hit, but no woman.”

“Maybe they don’t see her since she’s a ghost?”

“Maybe,” he says, but there’s so much doubt there, I’m starting to wonder if I saw her. But he did say he suspected something like that.

“What’s a White Woman?”

“A woman who died who was wronged in life or did some terrible wrong. She always appears in a white dress. She tends to try to hurt others to get away from her own pain or guilt.”

“Like causing people to wreck?”

“Exactly so. Sometimes victims see her, sometimes they don’t. She’s a legend that spans centuries and is embedded in many cultures and societies. She’s as old as time itself.”

“So, you believe me when I say we didn’t hit a deer?”

“No, you hit a deer, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. That she wasn’t responsible for the deer running out into the road and causing the accident. There hasn’t been a human who lived through those crashes until tonight. You and Cecily came through with serious injuries, but you’re both going to be fine.”

“And Eli?”

“He was impaled by a tree branch, but because of his natural healing abilities, the wounds were already starting to heal when he got here. They had to cut the branch out of him because his skin was trying to knit itself back together and encased the branch into his abdominal cavity. They removed it and repaired the damage. He’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“A few hours?” I ask slowly.

Gramps laughs. “He’s an Angel, girl. The boy will heal when no other supernatural creature can. Don’t ever worry about Elijah unless he’s decapitated. Hard to come back from that. Not impossible, but hard.”

He could live if he lost his head? How is that even possible?

“Don’t think too hard about it. Nothing in the supernatural world makes a whole lot of sense.”

Ain’t that the truth?

“And Jordan?”

Gramps snorts. “He had some cuts and bruises, a sprained ankle, and a broken wrist. No major damage. He won’t even need to see one of them bone doctors. He’s a lucky boy.”

“Who was wearing his seatbelt.”

Gramps frowns, clearly wanting to say something to Cecily about her lack of a seatbelt, but I trust him not to. He knows how hard she’s fought to gain some normalcy after her kidnapping.

“You said humans never live. How many people have died?” Best to turn his attention back to the ghost to distract him from his worries.

“More than I can count, but that road, it racks up deaths during the Christmas holiday through the new year. Every year for as long as I can remember. It’s what brought me back to Jacob’s Fork. I wanted to find the cause and do my best to find a solution.”

“Only through the holiday? No deaths during the rest of the year?”

“There are accidents there, sure, but not like there are during the last two weeks of December. If you saw a White Woman, that explains it.”

“How do we stop her?”

“You’re in no condition to stop her.”

“I’m the only one who can see her,” I point out, wincing when my head explodes in pain. “Well, maybe not today. But when I get out of here.”

“Probably won’t be for a few days.”

“I can’t be in here for Christmas.”

“I think your mother might have something to say about that.”

“Eli can…”

“No, he can’t. His body is healing itself, and that’s taking all his energy. He won’t wake up until it’s finished, and even then, he’ll be too weak to heal a major head injury.”

I didn’t think about that. Healing usually zaps all his energy. Who knows what healing himself will do to him if his injuries were as severe as Gramps described?

“His sister!” The thought comes out of nowhere. “Did anyone call Ava?”

“Yes, I called her, but I told her not to come to the hospital.”

“But why?”

“Because if we want to keep him safe and keep the town from turning against him, people can’t know. We talked about this, girl.”

“But he’s hurt. She should be with him.”

“She knows he’s okay. I told her if she wanted to come over tomorrow with the Blackburnes since Jason is her mate, that’d be fine. Her rushing here tonight only paints a target on Eli’s back. People know who her father is. It’s hard for them to trust her. None of us want that for Eli.”

No, we don’t. I remember what he went through when Jordan found out his family was basically an elite group of Hunters who tracked down Supernaturals and murdered them. Eli says they only hunted the actual monsters, the creatures who hurt innocents, but I’m not so sure about that. Why would the people here be so against the Malones if that’s all they did? I mean, Gramps hunts, but the town doesn’t hold that against him. Mr. Malone had to have done something to warrant this kind of fear from Gramps.

Until I can figure out why the Malones garner this kind of reaction, I’ll keep my feelings about this under wraps. I lost my father. I don’t want Eli to feel like he’s lost his all over again, but at the same time, I’ll protect him from James Malone if it’s warranted.

“You rest, girl. I’m going to go get your mother. If you fall asleep before she gets here, that’s fine. Doc says you’ll sleep more than anything else now that you’re awake. Your mom will be here when you wake up again.”

“I am sleepy.”

He leans down and kisses my head. “Then sleep, child. And don’t give this old man a heart attack like that again.”

Can’t promise that, but I don’t worry about it as my eyes drift shut. I am so tired. I don’t fight the sleep pulling me down this time because I’m safe and I know it.

Chapter Five

It was a week before they allowed us to go home. Once Eli woke up, he nearly killed himself again to make sure my brain wasn’t going to kill me. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. None of us really felt all that hot, but Mom is determined to make our first Christmas without Dad a special one. I mean, we all nearly died. What could be more special than that? It’s a Christmas we’ll all remember, that’s for sure.

I make my way downstairs, being extremely careful. I still get dizzy here and there, thanks to the concussion. Gramps is sitting in his chair, dozing, and Mom is on the phone. No sign of Eli or Cecily. All three of us crashed as soon as we got home this morning. Why does the body sleep like the dead while it’s healing? I was never a deep sleeper before, but since I’ve been injured so much once we came here, I tend to crash hard. It feels like my body is forever healing from something.

“Mom, you’re putting Gramps to sleep making him watch the Hallmark Channel.”

She looks up, startled, but then smiles. “He’s playing possum. He’s watching it.”

It’s a saying I’ve only heard here in West Virginia, and Mom picked it up within the first week of being here. It means he’s pretending to sleep, like a possum does when it’s in danger. They play dead.

Gramps snorts, proving her right.

“Can I use your office computer, Gramps? I want to access the Foundation database to read up on White Women.”

“What’s a White Woman?” Mom puts the landline back into its cradle and comes to join us in the living room.

“A type of ghost,” Gramps mutters. “But you are not going off chasing this one, Ella Grace. You just got out of the hospital from an accident this ghost caused.”

“Wait a moment.” Mom sits up straight from the seat she’d just taken on the couch. “Are you telling me a ghost caused the accident?”

“I think so,” Gramps says. “Ella saw a White Woman. I’ve suspected one on that stretch of highway for years but could never prove it. The number of car accidents there far exceeds any other area within a hundred-mile radius.”

“And you want to go looking for it after it nearly killed you?” Mom’s voice goes shrill as it rises with each word. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

“No, I’m not going looking for it. I just want to know everything I can about it in case I run up against one again. Knowledge is power. You taught me that, Gramps.”

Well, technically, I am going to go looking for her because she needs to stop hurting people and move on. Not today or tomorrow, but before her two-week reign of terror is up, I’m going to go find her and try to get her to move on. I need to talk to Selena about her too. My teacher in all things reaping might know more than what’s in the database and the books Gramps will have in his library.

“Fine, but if you think you’re getting out this house to go looking for her, you’re dead wrong, girl.”

Mom nods. “Your grandfather is right. You, Eli, and Cecily are in no condition to go traipsing through the snow and the cold to try to find a dangerous ghost. Why don’t you call your teacher and let her deal with it?”

“Now, that sounds like a plan,” Gramps agrees.

I don’t agree. My job is to convince ghosts to move on, and then I call Selena to collect them. But arguing the point will get me nowhere.

Turning, I go to the kitchen first and grab a bottle of water before going into Gramps’ office. It’s a very comfortable office. He’s even added a sofa for me. I tend to do a lot of my reading in here, as well as my homework, so he said I needed a more comfortable place to sit if this was where I was going to be spending time.

His computer is already booted up and the Foundation’s database running. He’d been doing a little research himself. I wonder if he realizes he left it open. Either way, I log him out and log myself in. The Foundation tracks every single person who logs in to the system and their movements while in it. I suppose so they can see who’s doing what and if they’re actually contributing to the database or not. Eli told me one of Mattie’s biggest fears is someone will misuse the database’s information to do awful things to the supernatural community. It’s always a risk. Not all Hunters are willing to concede not every Supernatural is evil incarnate.

Sighing, I navigate to the search box and type in White Woman. The number of results that are returned is staggering. Gramps wasn’t wrong when he said this particular breed of ghost has been around for a very long time and is known by various names in different cultures. She’s called many things, but her most common name is either the White Lady or the Woman In White. She was said to have suffered horribly in life and caused the death of her children or husband or both. It’s such a sad story.

By the time I look up three hours later, I honestly don’t know if I should feel sympathy or anger. Over half of the stories I read had the woman killing off her children out of rage at her husband or lover. I mean, sure, be mad at the guy who cheats on you or mistreats you, but to lose your mind and kill your kids? Yeah, I can’t see myself ever doing that, and I’m not sure if I can find it in me to try to reach this woman if that’s her story. She needs to move on, but am I the right person to convince her if I can’t find it in me to be even a little empathetic toward her?

“Why do you look so conflicted?” Eli yawns and comes over to stand by the desk so he can see what I’m doing. “A Woman in White? Did you see one?”

“The night we wrecked. She was standing in the road. I thought you hit her instead of a deer, but Gramps said we definitely hit a deer. They found it dead in the road with its blood on the bumper.”

“We hit a deer. I didn’t even have time to hit the brakes. It was just there.”

“I didn’t see a deer. I saw her. And I saw her again at the bottom of the mountain.”

“That’s not good.” He drags a chair over and sits beside me. “I’ve gone up against a few of them over the years. It’s always messy, and people get hurt more often than not.”

“I don’t know if I want to help her or not after reading this. They typically kill their own kids.”

“Not always. Sometimes there are no children or cheating husbands. Sometimes grief can drive them to killing themselves, or murder victims can become a Woman in White as well.”

“I think we need to figure out who ours is and if she deserves saving or killing.”

“You want to kill a ghost? Aren’t you supposed to be morally against that, you being a reaper and all?”

“I’m morally against murdering your own children.”

“Me too, but like I said, there’s always a story there. These ghosts become what they are because they wake up from whatever rage-induced fog they’re in and realize they’ve hurt the people they love. They end up killing themselves out of guilt and shame.”

“And then they hurt others because they don’t want to face what they did.”

Eli nods. “You’re really worked up about this, aren’t you?”

“First she tried to kill us, and now she might be whatever she is because she murdered her own family. Yeah, I’m pretty worked up about it.”

“Well, let’s go to the library tomorrow…”

“It’s Christmas Eve, Eli. The library is closed.”

“I forgot. Okay, then we go to the library the day after Christmas and see if we can find anyone who died on that road or…”

“Gramps said it’s been going on for years. He suspected this is what it was, but he wasn’t sure since there were no eyewitnesses. I think it might have something to do with the abandoned house we passed. The whole family died in a house fire, didn’t they? And on Christmas Eve. Gramps says there’s a huge number of accidents on that road during the last two weeks of December.”

“I don’t really know much about it. Jordan would. Or Jessie. They grew up here. We can ask them. But after Christmas. We all need to rest, and, well, it’s Christmas.”

“You sad your parents and brothers can’t be here?”

He sighs heavily. “Yeah, but Gramps is right. It’s better for everyone if no one learns my real name is Eli Malone.”

“Why, though? Is it just because your dad’s a glorified Hunter? The town knows Gramps hunts here and there, and they don’t have a problem with him.”

“That’s because they know he’s only going after rogues.”

“Rogues?”

“Supernaturals that are evil or have gone bad. Dad never really made that distinction. Never questioned whether the Supe he hunted deserved to be hunted. If it was there, he hunted it. People don’t take too kindly to that. Especially in a town full of Supernaturals who don’t go around hurting people. The town wouldn’t trust me anymore, Ella. Everyone knows his sons helped him hunt. This place is home to me, and I don’t want to lose my home after not having one most of my life.”

That, I get. We moved from place to place our entire lives, and it wasn’t until we came here that I understood what home was. I respect his decision, even if it’s not fair to him.

“I already talked to Mom. The family is going to come to Christiansburg after the first of the year, and we’ll spend the weekend together to celebrate. Alex said her uncle would do my glamour himself. He’s better at them than his sister or Alex.”

“At least you’ll get a few days with them, then. I was worried.”

He smiles and nudges my shoulder with his. “Don’t worry about me, Shortcake. I’m good. Just being able to talk to my mom on the phone is enough. It’s a miracle in itself.”

“What say we go find food and wrestle the TV away from Mom and Gramps? Jessie told me we need to watch Fire Country. It might take my mind off this insane anger I feel towards a ghost.”

“You got it. We’ll worry about your Woman in White after Christmas.”

I have a bad feeling about her, and I don’t know why.

But Eli’s right. We’ll worry about her after Christmas.

Chapter Six

“Ella?”

The whisper brings me out of sleep and fully alert, but then, my little brother usually inspires that sense of urgency and protection.

“What’s wrong?” I sit up, looking around for a threat that apparently isn’t here. My room looks perfectly normal.

“I heard something.” He glances toward my bedroom door, his little face awash with fear and anxiety. His nightmares are as bad as mine. When the Sandman struck Jacob’s Fork, he and his family were victims of the Reaper. His parents died, but I was able to rescue him from the dreamworld the Reaper fed in. We’re adopting him.

“What did you hear?”

“Footsteps.”

His father was a wolf shifter in life and beat the child daily, from what his therapist has been able to discern. His mother was drunk or drugged up and could offer no protection from his abusive father since she wasn’t aware of her surroundings most of the time. He might have been having a nightmare from any of those situations.

“What if…”

“What?”

His eyes got wide, and he shook his head. “What if it’s the elf?”

Mom had gotten the Elf on the Shelf, thinking it would be fun, but for Jamie, it isn’t. It reminds him of the toy clown his father used to beat him with. We tried to turn it into something fun, telling him the elf only played pranks and would sneak around leaving treats and goodies for him to find. His friends at school told him the elf watched them and would do mean things if they were bad. I want to throw the thing in the garbage because it’s creepy, but Mom is determined to show him not everything that looks doll-like is bad. Good luck with that one.

As it stands, Jamie isn’t sure if he can trust the elf or not.

Heck, neither am I, now that I know things aren’t always what they seem. My kids will never suffer the horror of the Elf on the Shelf.

“Well, the elf does move around when we can’t see it, but it’s only stashing candy or Christmas cookies. Remember the snowman cookies we found in your nightstand drawer? Maybe it was trying to put more cookies in there.”

“I didn’t eat those cookies.”

“Why not?”

“He might have poisoned them.” His brown eyes are so wide, it would almost be funny if not for the fear in them.

“He’s a good elf.”

“I don’t think so.” The words are spoken so solemnly, I take them to heart. “I think we need to burn him.”

“Burn him?”

He nods. “Papa always said if you want rid of something for good, you burn it.”

“Okay. We’ll go find it and burn it together.”

He smiles. “Really?”

“Sure. Santa will understand.”

“Santa?”

“All elves belong to Santa.”

“No, not our elf. He came from the store. Real elves belong to Santa. This one is just…scary.”

He’s not wrong. Yawning, I throw the covers back and get up, my feet shuddering against the cold floor. I see my slippers over by the door. I kicked them off after my shower earlier.

“Think we can convince Gramps to put in heated floors?”

He shrugs. I’m not sure he even knows what a heated floor is. He’s only five.

Slipping my house shoes on, I take his hand, and we go out into the hall, where Cecily is standing.

“Cec?”

She looks up, startled. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry. Why are you up?”

“I heard something.”

“Me too,” Jamie whispers. “We think it’s the elf. We’re going to go burn him.”

“I hate that thing.” She nods. “I’m in. Let’s go find the little bugger and throw him in the fireplace.”

“What did you hear, exactly?” I ask as we start down the stairwell, moving slowly because we both had surgery. The only good thing about that was we didn’t have to go the last few days of school before Christmas break. Yes, it’s a sad, pathetic attempt at a silver lining, but it’s all I’ve got.

“Footsteps, maybe. I’m not sure.”

“That’s what I heard,” Jaimie whispers loudly. Only little kids ever think almost yelling is whispering as long as they try to be quiet.

“Yeah?” she asks and stumbles when we land at the bottom of the stairs. I catch her before she falls.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have demanded to come home from the hospital so early.”

“I’m fine. Just sore. Mostly.”

I don’t agree, but I’m not going to argue the point unless she tries to do too much and starts to hurt again. We both refused pain meds, having seen what getting addicted to that crap can do. I don’t want her unnecessarily causing herself so much pain that Motrin or Tylenol won’t help.

We don’t bother turning on the lights since Mom left the Christmas tree and all the garland lights on. It gives off more than enough illumination to see.

It never ceases to make me smile when Jamie’s eyes go glassy with wonder every time he sees all the Christmas decorations. He told us he’d never even had a tree before, let alone all the lights and other decorations Mom put out. It caused Mom to go a little overboard on decorations, but we don’t care. When we first got Jamie, we had some decorations up, and he thought that was magical. Then he came home from school and saw the Banks family version of Christmas and nearly lost it. He went from item to item, not daring to touch anything. Mom explained to him that he could touch anything he wanted. It took him a few days to trust that, but the joy in the kid’s face was worth all the effort she and Cecily went through to make it special for him.

For me, the lights are what get me. I can sit for hours in the dark with just the glow of the lights on around me. It’s the one part of the decorations I don’t mind helping to put up because that soft glow in the dark is peaceful to me. They’ve always made me feel warm and loved. I haven’t done that this year, though. Maybe I’ll share the experience with Jamie. It might bring back some of my joy.

“I’ll get the fire started. You two go find the elf.”

Cecily nods and takes Jamie’s hand. Mom is going to kill us, but it’ll be worth it if this makes Jamie feel safer.

Settling down in front of the fireplace, I grab some of the tinder in the box and a match to start the fire. I’ll have to remember to cut the heat down with the fire going or we’ll all burn up. The fireplace is original to the house, but it’s been updated over the years and isn’t drafty at all through the year. It doesn’t take me long to get the fire going, and I sit back, crossing my legs and letting the heat seep into me. I’m freezing.

“What are you doing, Shortcake?” Eli’s sleepy voice startles me, and I look up to see him coming down the stairs. His blond hair is tousled and moves with his yawn. He really does look like the Angel he is when he’s standing in the glow of the Christmas lights. His unusual aqua-colored eyes are bright, and I can see the color even in the semi-darkness.

“We’re burning the Elf on the Shelf.”

He pauses mid-step and just looks at me.

“Why?”

“Jamie’s afraid of it. He wants to burn it, and Cecily and I agree the thing is creepy. It should die.”

He shakes his head and settles down beside me. “Are those two trying to find him?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you cold?” he murmurs and scoots closer. Heat surrounds me, and I sigh, feeling warm for the first time all night.

“Yeah. It’s weird, really, but since the accident, it feels like it’s harder to get warm. I’m fine once I am, but it takes a while.”

He goes quiet for a moment, and I turn to look at him.

“Uh, it sounds like you collected a little more ghost energy into your soul.”

“What does that mean?”

“With living reapers, every time they die and wake back up, their soul become a little more like that of a ghost. It causes their body temperature to drop a little each time as well. Mattie, well, she’s always freezing. She can be standing in one-hundred-degree heat, and she’ll still feel cold. Whenever I’m around her, my body automatically heats up, and I become a furnace for her. It’s what she needs.”

“Is that why you feel so warm now?”

He laughs. “This isn’t furnace-level heat. It’s more like a heating pad because you’re not chock-full of ghost energy.”

“If I’m colder, does that mean I died at some point?”

“It does. You should probably check with your mom about that. The surgeon would have told her if your heart stopped on the operating table.”

“Could it have stopped in the Jeep when we were all unconscious?”

“I don’t think so… I mean, you’d have to have had CPR, and none of us were capable of that.”

“But…”

“But?” he prompts after a moment.

“But if you sensed I needed it, do you think your Guardian Angel abilities would have reached out to pull me back from death even with you unconscious?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe Gramps would know.”

“We’ll ask him in the morning.”

“Which is in about two hours.” I glance at the clock on the wall and yawn. “I’m never getting back to sleep.”

“Why are you guys up, anyway?”

“Jamie told me heard footsteps and was convinced it was the elf running around trying to cause terror and mayhem. We found Cecily in the hallway saying she heard footsteps too. Which concerned me, but I haven’t seen or heard anything since I woke up.”

“Nothing should be able to get in here. Gramps has it warded against every known Supernatural there is.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t work on everything. Remember the demon? He got through Gramps’ wards.”

“There isn’t a ward I know of Silas can’t get around. Drives Zeke crazy. And has done so for Gramps since Silas bypassed his. I think it’s one of his unique abilities. Mattie can do the same, but it takes her longer to get through them.”

“He’s her grandfather, isn’t he?”

Eli nods.

“How does that even work? I mean, he’s a demon. How can they even procreate?”

“I don’t think about it. I’d rather not know, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just a little more curious. I need to research it.”

Eli grunts and starts to say something, but we’re interrupted by Cecily and Jamie coming back from the kitchen. Cecily holds up the Elf triumphantly.

“We found him in the pantry behind the M&M’s,” Jamie says, smiling. “Now he burns.”

Eli laughs. “Bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”

“You want him in your room running around while you sleep?” Cecily asks.

“God, no. Burn the cretin.”

Cecily hands it to Jamie, who crawls into my lap and stares at the flames. “You will not do bad things again, Elf.” Then he tosses him into the flames.

Cecily joins us, and the four of us watch as the fire consumes the little elf. It’s not long before Jamie falls asleep in my lap, and Eli gets up and grabs a throw off the couch to spread over him. Cecily is passed out next to me.

I guess the fire has a way of making you sleepy because I’m yawning. Eli gets a few more throws out of the closet for the rest of us, and before long, we’re all asleep by the fire.

And as I fall out, I swear I can hear the elf screaming in the fire, but that has to be a dream. Elves aren’t real, especially ones from the store.

Right?

Chapter Seven

The smell of cinnamon buns wakes me up. Mom only makes them at Christmas. Yawning, I sit up and look around, surprised everyone is still asleep in front of the fireplace. The lights are on in the kitchen, but Mom had left everything on this side of the room off. The fire was stoked as well. Something Gramps had to have done because Mom and lighting fires do not mix.

Careful not to disturb the others, I get up and make a quick detour to the downstairs bathroom before joining Mom in the kitchen. She’s humming along to Jingle Bells and kneading dough. It’s the one thing I hate to do in the kitchen. Kneading dough will give you a workout and a half and leave your arms sore if you do it right. Dad always laughed when I complained about it and would tell me to man up.

“Good morning, Ella Grace.”

“Morning, Mom.” I grab a cold bottle of water out of the fridge before sitting at the island. “How long have you been up?”

“Not long. I put one batch of sticky buns in the oven already, and I have the next one ready. I thought we could take some over to the Blackburnes later today to say thank you for everything they did in helping to get you back.”

Ah. I see what she’s up to. Ava will be spending the day with Jason and his family. It’s her way of finding a reason to go there so Eli can see his sister, if not his entire family.

“That will be nice. I have some research to do, so maybe send Eli? I know you and Cecily plan on doing some last-minute shopping at the mall before stores close today.”

“And Jamie wants to see Santa. He’s going to be at Mercer Mall for a few hours today. Sure you don’t want to come?”

“Nah, I’m good. I need to read more on the ghost I saw. Knowledge is power. Just promise to stay off that road.”

“You don’t need to worry about me in that regard. We’ll stay far, far away from it.” She covers the dough she’s been kneading so it can proof and starts cleaning up. “Have you seen the elf? I went to move it before Jamie got up, and I can’t find it.”

“About that…”

She pauses and looks up. “Why do you look so guilty, Ella Grace Banks?”

“Jamie’s terrified of it. He woke up last night convinced he could it hear it walking around. He thinks it’s evil.”

“What?” Her eyes go as wide as Jamie’s did last night. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Probably because he was afraid we’d send him away if we thought he was being difficult.”

She looks wounded at the suggestion, but it’s true. His therapist told us it’s his one overriding fear.

“So, we hunted down the elf last night and tossed him in the fire.”

“You burned him? Whatever for? Why not just throw him away?”

“Well, if you want rid of something supernatural, the one sure way is fire for most creatures. Jamie’s a shifter. It’s what he knows, what his father taught him, so we adhered to his beliefs. He’s not wrong either. Fire will take out a lot of things, including humans.”

“I wish he’d told me. I’d never have brought the thing in the house.”

“Well, he eventually told us, so that’s progress. A few weeks ago, he’d have suffered in silence.”

“I suppose,” she mutters.

“Mom, this is a good thing. It means he feels safe here. That he knows he can trust us.”

“He knows he can trust you,” she says wryly. “I’m hoping he’ll learn to trust me the same way eventually.”

“He will. You’re the best mom there is, and he knows that. He’s just not sure how to express it yet.”

Mom smiles one of the saddest smiles I’ve ever seen. “Come on, sweetheart, you can help me. While I go get cleaned up, do you think you can make the egg frittatas?”

“Sure thing.”

“Can you start the brining liquid for the turkey as well? It’s just the breast for you and your sister. I’m doing my Coca-Cola ham for everyone else.”

“You’ll save me some unsweetened ham too?”

“Don’t I always?”

She kisses my forehead and goes up the stairs. She must have gotten up really early to get all this started. I see she’s also got her baking ingredients out for her Christmas cookies and candy. I want to get Jamie involved in baking cookies. We can decorate some, and he can pick out a few to leave for Santa. I’m sure Gramps or Eli or both will devour them once he’s asleep, waiting for Santa to show up.

Looking toward the living room, I shake my head. There’s already a mountain of presents under there. We had to explain to Jamie that those presents were from us and the rest of the family. Santa would come and leave him special toys on Christmas Eve. Mom and Dad always left the ones from Santa unwrapped with just a name tag on them.

Jamie’s not convinced Santa even exists, as he never got Christmas presents. Ever. That is so incredibly sad to me. I want to rush out and buy out the store for him, but like Mom said, that would be too overwhelming for him. It might cause a setback. As it is, he has more presents than the rest of us.

Not that we care. I think Cecily spent more time poring over the toy section in every store we went to than the rest of us did. And Gramps was just as bad. He bought Jamie a bike that he and Eli spent three days trying to put together. Mom and I put it together in an hour. If they’d read instructions, they’d get things done faster.

“Ella.”

I jump, startled, when my reaping teacher, Selena, appears in the chair next to mine.

“Don’t do that,” I whisper. “You’re going to give me a heart attack before I’m nineteen.”

“You’ll live. I know your death date.”

“My what?”

She smiles slightly, and it’s creepy. I don’t know what it is about reapers, but when they smile, it’s just…weird and creepy. Selena looks like a beautiful Hispanic woman, but she’s cold, calculated, and Eli is convinced a tad evil. I’m not sure about that, but there’s something in her presence that’s unsettling.

“I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you.”

Shaking my head, I get up and go around to the other side of the island to start cutting up the veggies for the frittatas. It also puts some distance between us. It isn’t just her demeanor that’s cold, but her body temperature is ice, and it feels like you’re outside in subzero temperatures when she sits next to you.

“To what do I owe this unexpected visit?”

“You met a ghost a few nights ago. One that has been on our agenda for many years, but she’s never shown herself to one of us before.”

“The White Lady that nearly killed all of us?”

“That would be the one. You’ve seen her, so we’re hoping she will show herself to you again. That way, we might be able to speak with her. Some ghosts are so traumatized, they run from the peace they can sense within our embrace.”

“And since I’m not a full reaper, she might think I’m human and allow me to reach out.”

“You are human.”

“Eli says I have more ghost energy in my soul after the accident, so doesn’t that make me a little less human than I was?”

Frowning, she raises her hand and holds it out toward me, palm up.

“What are you doing?”

“Sensing the reaper in you, and yes, it’s stronger. You died recently.”

“Uh, we think it might have been in the accident, and Eli’s Guardian Angel mojo brought me back even though he was unconscious.”

“That’s completely possible. As a Guardian, his number-one priority is your safety, and those responsibilities don’t stop just because he is unconscious. His body would have done everything in its power to keep you alive.”

“That doesn’t seem fair, though. He was really hurt. It should have focused on healing him first. There’s a reason they tell parents to put the air mask on before they try to put their kid’s on in planes. You can’t help them if you go unconscious first.”

Selena shrugs. “I do not question all the rules of the Supernatural world. I abide by them and complete my duties as a reaper within those guidelines. As should you. It is not our place to question, but to act responsibly and with honor.”

“I’m human. It is in my nature to question things.”

“But you are no longer just a human girl, Ella. You are a living reaper, and with that comes all the responsibilities. I know you did not choose your fate, but it is what you are now. We’ve discussed this.”

Selena promised me she’d be a better teacher, and so far, she’s done that. We’ve sat for hours and spoken about all things reaping, from the mechanics of the ability to its history. I learned a lot from her about my gift. She’s a very cold person, but she’s also an excellent teacher.

“I know, but you can’t erase eighteen years of instincts.”

“No, but you can learn to control those instincts. Just do your duty and don’t ask as many questions. It is not our duty to solve the death, only to ferry it to the next plane.”

“It’s not your duty, as you’re a full-fledged reaper. Or so you’ve said. But as you like to point out, I am human, and it is my duty as a human to find out what happened, to solve the mystery, so to speak. Sometimes if a ghost gets its closure, it can move on easier than us sitting there trying to convince it moving on is best when its mind is so full of worries. I thought reapers would have learned this by now and adapted their way of approaching scared, confused ghosts.”

She frowns. “Why are living reapers so mired down in the humanity of the souls we ferry?”

“Because we’re human. Were you ever a human, Selena?”

“No, I have always been a reaper.”

“You’ve never experienced human emotions, have you?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you should. I mean, if that’s even a possibility.”

“You mean can a reaper experience human emotions?”

I nod. “Yes.”

Her frown deepens. “It’s possible, but it’s not something I’d ever do.”

“Why?”

“Humans are messy, illogical creatures. Why would I want to subject myself to that?”

“Because it would make you a better reaper.”

“That is your opinion. We have functioned in our capacity since the beginning of creation. What is the saying…if it’s not broken, don’t fix it?”

“That is the saying for those unwilling to change and make a better way. It’s an archaic way of thinking.”

“I am an archaic being, young one.”

“Just how old are you, Selena?”

“Never ask a lady her age, or is that an archaic way of thinking as well?”

“Touché. Mom says the same thing.”

She nods in a wise way, the way my great-grandmother used to when she was trying to get her point across, and I’d give in even if I didn’t understand the point. We don’t disrespect the old.

And I’m not going to make any headway on this tonight, so I steer the conversation back to the White Lady.

“Do you know who this ghost is? A name or something?”

“No, Ella. I’ve told you. We don’t know names until we make contact with the ghost. We sense them, and then all that information comes to us. It is our gift.”

“That doesn’t extend to me.”

“Perhaps in time it will. Living reapers are rare, so even we are unsure of what you will be able to do as your gift matures and grows. It is why you have a teacher so we may help you as that happens.”

Sometimes I seriously doubt that. But whatever.

“So, you want me to go out there, find her, talk to her, and convince her to move on?”

“As you always do, Ella Grace.”

“Yeah, but this ghost is a type of murderous ghost that usually has to be put down.”

“That is why you have your Guardian, child. Should you need protecting while you fulfill your duties, he will be there.”

“He’s still healing.”

“The ghost needs to be stopped.”

“Not until after Christmas. We all still need to heal from our last encounter with her…and no arguments, Selena. I’m not an immortal reaper who doesn’t fear death. I’m just a human girl who can die as easily as you can move between the planes.”

“Fine, but do not put it off long, Ella. There are people scheduled to die because of the ghost. The longer you put it off, the higher the chances are of their deaths coming to pass.”

And with that, she pops out of existence.

I hate that. She always gets the last word.

But she’s right. We can’t put it off for long.

If we can prevent a death, then we will.

But first, breakfast and the brine.

I’ll deal with the ghost later.

Chapter Eight

“Where’s Eli?” Jamie asks a few hours later.

“He went to take some Christmas sweets to the neighbors around town.” Jamie has no idea about Eli’s sister, Ava. He’s so little, we were unsure he’d be able to keep the secret, so we thought it best not to tell him. “He’ll be back in a few hours.”

His lip pushes out, and I want to laugh, but I refrain. Little boys have big egos, I’ve learned, and get their feelings hurt easily when called out on it. We do our best to turn him away from that and keep him sweet and teach him to be a good person.

“He said he’ll help me build a snowman like Frosty.”

There’s enough snow on the ground for it, with more on the way. We haven’t had a white Christmas since we lived in Germany.

“Well, I think you’ll have enough to build a whole family of snowmen.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now, why don’t you go put on something to watch while I make you some hot chocolate?”

“With marshmallows?”

“Yes, with marshmallows. Now, scoot.”

“Is Cecily in her room?”

“Yes. She’s getting ready for your trip to the mall to see Santa.”

“Is he real, do you think? Shouldn’t he be at the North Pole with the elves and not in a mall?”

Ah, the question I always asked my mother about Santa. So I give him the same answer she gave me.

“Santa is full of magic, but you’re right. He can’t be in two places at once, and today is the big day. He has to start getting ready to deliver the toys, and that means making sure the sleigh is packed and the reindeer are ready to go.”

“So, the mall Santa isn’t Santa?”

“Nope, but the mall Santa is Santa too.”

“How?”

“Like I said, he’s magic, so he conjures up a clone Santa who is at the mall. Santa hears and sees everything the mall Santa does while he packs the sleigh.”

“Huh.” He frowns, mulling that over.

“Go on and find us a Christmas show to watch while we wait for Mom and Cecily to get ready.”

“Are you coming to the mall?”

“No. I have stuff to do.” I’m going to use the time to wrap everything I bought last week. It’s one of the rare occasions everyone will be out of the house, with Eli at the Blackburnes’, Gramps at an old friend’s, and everyone else at the mall. I’m looking forward to the peace and quiet, honestly.

I hear the opening scene of The Polar Express and suppress a groan. It is Jamie’s favorite Christmas movie. Granted, he’s only watched it twenty times over the last few weeks, but I’d rather watch anything else. It’s what he loves, so I can bear with it, I guess. Mom and Cecily should be ready soon enough. It’s supposed to snow later, and I know Mom wants to be back to go caroling with her charity group. She’s dragging Cecily, Jamie, and Jordan with her. She invited me, but I could tell from her expression she was relieved I said no. To be fair, I can’t sing. It sounds more like a cat caterwauling than singing.

It’s about an hour later, and two cups of hot chocolate for Jamie, when Mom and Cecily bundle him up and take him to the mall.

Finally, peace and quiet.

I take a few minutes to sit and relax, reveling in the total silence of the house, before I go ferret my presents out of the closet to wrap. I flip the TV back on and, much to my shame, navigate to the Hallmark Channel. Thankfully, something I like is on. I still can’t believe Blake Shelton produced a sweet Christmas romance. It’s Time For Me To Come Home For Christmas is one of my all-time favorite movies. Yes, I’m a horror fan, but I can like a romance here and there as well.

Usually, I can summon some kind of happiness when I’m wrapping presents, but this year, it just seems bleh. A chore and nothing more. What is wrong with me? I’m starting to think it’s more than simple depression over my dad.

Putting the finishing touches on the last present, I go back upstairs to my room and take the second cell phone out of my bedside table to make a call. Only the people who need to know the number know it. All of us have one whose sim card is switched out every single week. Eli’s father used to have his family do it, and we adopted the policy after the Army incident. 

There is a number Eli made me memorize. It’s a number I haven’t ever used, but I need answers. And I was told I could call anytime, night or day, if I needed help.

“Hello?”

“Um…it’s Ella.”

“Is something wrong?”

Her voice is soft but not musical. She sounds almost gruff, like I’ve woken her up or something.

“I’m not sure,” I say slowly.

“What happened? Is Eli okay?”

“He’s fine. It’s, um…” How to ask the only other living reaper in existence if she’s ever felt so depressed it was like a black hole was eating her alive.

I hear her move around and then settle, a mattress squeaking. I bet I did wake her up.

“Sorry, I was napping. Mary dragged me to the mall this morning for some last-minute shopping, and I was beat. I hate shopping. Did Eli tell you that?”

“Um, should I call you Mattie or Emma?”

“Whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

“Eli always calls you Hilda.”

“Except that. I hate that nickname.”

“I guess Mattie, then. I’m not sure how to describe what’s wrong.”

“Okay, so something is wrong?”

“Just with me and what I’m feeling.”

“Ah.” She says the word like I’ve told her all my secrets.

“Ah?”

“I bet you’re feeling sad, angry, depressed?”

“Yeah, all those things. It’s like a darkness has settled over me, and I can’t shake it. At first, I thought it was about my dad not being here for Christmas or even trying to contact us, but I’m not so sure now. This seems too all-consuming for that.”

“I’m sure your feelings about your father play into it, but you’re right. It’s not just that. I wasn’t sure how much of the reaping ability you would have since you’re basically human. I’m unique in my supernatural heritage. I have a Shaman in my lineage, so feeling what a ghost feels, the visions…that’s all expected with me. You aren’t having visions, are you?”

“No. No visions.”

“Good. You don’t want to have to deal with that. At some point, you might start to experience what the ghost experienced in death, but I’m hoping you never have to deal with that. If it happens, we have a way to at least dampen it a bit so you don’t feel what they feel as they die.”

“That sounds…”

“Awful? It is. But back to your feelings. I’m guessing you have a bit of an empath in your heritage somewhere. They may not have even known. People probably assumed they were too sensitive. The holidays are usually a rough time for people. There are more suicides during this time than the rest of the year. Those ghosts are drowning in darkness, and it’s affecting you. You’re picking up on the despair, the pain, the depression. I feel it too. Every year, without fail. I don’t really talk about it with my family because it would only make them worry about me more, and Kane says it’s something all reapers deal with, at least the ones who still have emotions.”

“I didn’t think reapers had emotions.”

“Not all reapers are born reapers. Some were human in life, and those human emotions stay with them for hundreds of years.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“A lot of the old ones won’t admit that the humanity of humans infects their race at all, so it’s not surprising your teacher didn’t tell you this.”

“She’s actually a good teacher. Very cold as a person, but a good teacher.”

“Well, if you say so. I have no love for any of them. The one assigned to me usually ignores my calls, so I’ve written her off. Kane helps me with understanding everything reaping.”

“He was your teacher before?”

“Yeah, but he helped me do things not related to reaping, and it got him in trouble. They tortured him until I saved him.”

“Just for helping you?”

“Death is a serious business, and I now understand the need for death to stay on schedule, but the punishment did not fit the crime.”

I had no idea reapers were so brutal.

“We’re off topic again.” The wry tone in her voice has me smiling. She sounds like me when I realize I meant to do A but got sidetracked into B, with A forgotten by the wayside. “Your feelings will improve once the holidays pass.”

“But what do I do now? I mean, there’s no joy in my heart at all.”

“This is your first year as a living reaper during the holiday season. It gets better with each year. You learn to filter it out, even subconsciously. This will be the hardest year. I’m sure Eli knows something is wrong, but how about everyone else?”

“No, I smile and laugh where I’m supposed to.”

“That’s good. Upsetting your family over something that you have to learn to live with isn’t going to do anything but make them sad. Lean on Eli. He’ll help if you let him.”

“How?”

“He’s your Guardian Angel, Ella. He becomes what you need, and if you need to not feel this bad, he can make that go away, at least for the amount of time he’s in the room with you.”

“I did notice it’s not so bad when he’s around.”

“It’s what he does.”

“You said it’ll get better?”

“Yeah. Your psyche will adapt, and the joy will start to filter back in. For me, I remind myself of all the things I have gained over the years, especially my family. I grew up alone and in foster care and now have this huge family who loves me. I focus on that, and it helps. Do you have something or someone you can focus on?”

“Jamie. He had nothing but pain and heartache with his family, and now we’re showing him what it means to have a family who loves him.”

“Then focus on that, and when the darkness tries to overwhelm you, think of his face and all the expressions it goes through when he sees something wonderful. That will help block out the dark feelings.”

So, I’m going to have to learn to live with this because, as a reaper, I’m susceptible to all the dark thoughts of suicidal ghosts, the sadness of those who died without closure, and the general overall suckiness of dying. Great.

“I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about this. I wasn’t sure who else to talk to, and Selena wasn’t at all helpful when I asked her.”

“Like I said, reapers in general don’t understand. Anytime you want to know something, call. We living reapers have to stick together.”

“Thanks, Mattie.”

“You’re welcome, and Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.” I disconnect the call and sit back on the bed. That helped a lot. It gave me a way to cope with the black thoughts.

At least I know it’s not all me and I’m not spiraling down a dark path that could lead me onto the same road as the ghosts whose thoughts are infecting mine.

Maybe I’ll go caroling with Mom later. I can pretend to sing just to watch Jamie’s face as he goes from house to house singing his little heart out. He’s worked diligently on learning the songs and was disappointed I wouldn’t be coming. He did wince when he heard my rendition of Jingle Bells, so he understood.

I need to clean up my mess downstairs, and then I can start prepping for dinner. Mom’s famous Christmas Eve dinner is quick, but it’s a lot of prep work. The least I can do is get the sauce started.

And finish watching my movie.

Focus on Jamie, how much I love that movie, and start dinner. That should help with the dark thoughts.

Hopefully.

Sighing, I get up and head to the kitchen.

Things will get better. I cling to that as I start dinner.

Chapter Nine

“But how?”

Jamie’s little face is screwed up in confusion as Cecily tells him about the Santa tracker.

“Well, NASA has these big satellites in space that can see the sleigh and reindeer as he moves from country to country. Look.”

She swivels the laptop so he can see the NORAD Santa tracker. His eyes widen as he watches Santa move across the map.

“But he’s magic. They’re not supposed to be able to see him.”

“He is magic. How do you think he gets down chimneys and through the keyhole for houses that don’t have chimneys? He blinks, and there he is. It’s the little kids who aren’t supposed to see him, not satellites. He sneaks in, leaves presents, and eats a bite of his cookies. He does it all in secret while you’re asleep. It’s your big Christmas surprise. That’s why you’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Then how can I tell if it’s really him?”

He’s still not buying the whole Santa is real thing. Gramps and Eli have a plan.

“That’s why you stay awake in your room,” Eli whispers. “You listen for the sleigh to land on the roof. I even went out and bought special reindeer feed to give them a snack. Me and Gramps are gonna go put it on the roof for them.”

“But it’s snowing. The snow will cover it.”

“Nah. These are magical reindeer. They’ll be able to magic it up and eat it.”

Jamie frowns. “If they’re real.”

“I have an idea,” Mom says.

Jamie looks at her, hopeful.

“Why don’t you and I put up a Christmas tent in your room to hide in while we wait? We’ll make it look like you’re in your bed so Santa and the elves will think you’re fast asleep while the two of us wait and listen for the sleigh to land. Then we’ll wait a little bit, sneak downstairs, and see if he ate his cookies.”

Jamie nods. “That might work. If he thinks I’m sleeping, he’ll still come. And if we hear him on the roof, then I’ll know he’s real.”

“Exactly.” Mom smiles. “And we might get a sneak peek at what he left for you…”

His eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Cecily used to do it all the time.”

His eyes swing to our sister. “Did Santa ever catch you?”

“Almost. When I was seven, I snuck down the stairs, and I saw him putting toys under the tree. He started to turn when I made a noise, and I ran all the way back to my room and hid under the blankets in case his elves came to investigate.”

“What happens if he sees you?”

“I don’t know. I was always afraid he’d take my presents back.”

“No!” Jamie gasps.

Cecily nods. “Yes. One year, I was really bad, and I pitched a fit because I didn’t want to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s for Christmas, and he left me a lump of coal in my stocking.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I got a stocking full of goodies. I even shared with Cecily because she didn’t get anything. I think it earned me bonus points with the head elf.”

Jamie pats my cheek. “You’re a good sister.”

“I try.”

Eli flicks my nose. “Humble much?”

“She’s not humble at all.” Mom comes over from the kitchen carrying a tray full of peppermint hot chocolate for everyone and a cup of lemon tea for me. “Did everyone have fun caroling?”

“I’m frozen,” Gramps groans, coming into the room and settling himself into his recliner. He accepts the mug Mom hands him. “Smells good, Molly.”

“You sure you have room after eating three large servings of lasagna?” I eyeball his stomach, noticing his pants button is popped. He’s too full. Man might puke if he puts any more into that gut of his.

“For my favorite flavor of hot chocolate? You betcha.”

I’m guessing it’ll be Eli on the roof with Gramps down below directing. I doubt he’s getting up a ladder in his soon-to-be food coma.

Eli almost moans when he takes the first sip. “Yours is so much better than the Coffee Shoppe’s.”

“Thank you.” Mom smiles and sips her own. “Now, we have a tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. Any gift you want.”

“My family and I did that too,” Eli says. “I was going to suggest it before bed.”

“We do it after dinner so we get to enjoy it for longer.” Cecily puts her mug down and all but throws herself toward the gifts. “Come on, Jamie. Which one do you want?”

His eyes go so wide, they might pop out of his eyes. “I can have one now? Really?”

“Yes, any one you want.” Mom urges him off the couch, takes his hand, and leads him to the overflowing pile of gifts, the bulk of which are his. We don’t want to overwhelm him, but Christmas is the one day of the year it’s okay to give him a lot. At least we think so.

He sits down and carefully studies the packages with his name on them. He’s a little behind, as he never went to school regularly, but he does recognize his name. Mom hired tutors to help him get up to the reading and math levels where he needs to be. One who specifically works with children who have been battered and abused. His therapist recommended the woman.

“That one.” He points to the big blue box in the back. He’s been eyeballing it for days. I know what it is. Gramps bought him a huge Polar Express-themed train set and table. It’s complete with a town and everything. It’s going to take hours to put together and set up. The trains are motorized. Jamie’s going to love it.

“You sure?” Gramps asks, understanding his hours before bed are going to be spent building the thing.

He nods vigorously.

Gramps sighs. “Go ahead and dig it out, then, boy.”

Jamie carefully picks his way around the other presents and tries to drag it out, but the box is too big and heavy for him. Eli grins and helps him.

“There you go. Tear into it.”

Jamie glances to Mom, and she nods. “Go ahead, sweetheart.”

He looks at it, trying to decide how to open it.

“Just grab an edge and tear,” Eli says, showing him where the paper is folded on the side.

“It might mess it up.”

“That’s the point. Wrapping paper is meant to be torn to shreds.”

“Mama always got mad if I tore up paper.”

Mom turns away to hide her anger, but she doesn’t let it show in her voice. “In this house, the rules are different. You tear that paper to your heart’s content.”

He frowns but decides to trust Mom’s words. He takes hold of the paper and tears it right down the side, exposing the words Polar Express. We all laugh at the gasp that nearly knocks him over. He just stares at the box.

“Go on, then, finish taking the paper off.” Gramps’ words are gruff, but his eyes are smiling.

Jamie blinks and then tears into the wrapping, exposing the large box and the train set it holds. “It’s the movie,” he whispers.

“No, but it’s a replica of it,” Mom tells him. “Do you want Gramps to help you put it together?”

“Will you?” He turns his little boy puppy dog eyes on Gramps.

Gramps nods. “Eli, go fetch me my toolbox and the electric screwdriver.”

“Yes, sir.” Eli hops up and heads to the garage.

I realize Mattie was right. Focusing on Jamie and the joy and wonder he felt just now pushed the darkness away enough so that I could laugh and enjoy the moment.

A knock interrupts the laughter about an hour later, and I go to open the door, not wanting to interrupt anyone attempting to put the massive train table together. I suggested putting it together in the playroom. Gramps had disassembled the downstairs guest room and turned it into a playroom for Jamie.

Men are stupid. They tried to put it together and decided after they’d built half of it, they couldn’t make it fit through the door assembled, so they had to take it apart and rebuild it in the room, as I said from the beginning.

Sheriff Ethan McReynolds is standing on the other side of the door, his winter jacket pulled tight. He doesn’t look happy.

“Come in.” I step aside, and he knocks the snow off his boots before coming in.

“I’m sorry to bother you tonight, Ella, but there’s been an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Out on the same road where you all wrecked. Jessie’s in ICU. She’s too hurt to shift and heal, so we have to wait until she’s stronger. She and her mother were coming home from church, and the car behind them saw it happen. A deer ran out in front of them and her mother swerved to miss it, but her vehicle hit a tree and flipped.”

“She’s going to be okay, though?”

“The doc thinks so. It’s harder to hurt a shifter than almost any other creature because we heal so fast, but she’s not in good shape right now.”

“What can I do?”

“Can we sit?” Ethan nods toward the living room.

“Sure. There’s still some peppermint hot chocolate left. Do you want a cup?”

“I’d appreciate it. I’m froze through to the bone.”

I go into the kitchen, pour the last of it in a mug, and heat it in the microwave before adding the candy cane. Ethan’s rubbing his hands together when I hand him the steaming mug. He wraps his hands around it as I sit down.

“I was told you said you saw a ghost the night y’all crashed.”

“I did. Gramps said it was a White Woman. Eli called it a Lady in White. Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“Gramps said for the last two weeks of December every year, there are way more accidents on that road than anywhere else all year.”

“That’s true.”

“That’s your culprit. We’re going to see what we can do about her after tomorrow. Can you put out an announcement or something to stay off the road until then?”

“That road is the easiest access point to town. It’ll be hard.”

“But maybe it’ll keep the bulk of people off the road. I doubt there’s going to be a lot of coming and going tomorrow anyway since it’s Christmas and people are going to be home opening presents and cooking.”

“We’ll put up road closed signs.”

“That’ll help.”

Mom comes in and stops abruptly, seeing Ethan sitting there, looking cold, miserable, and haggard. Jessie is his niece. I’m sure he’s worried.

“Sheriff?”

“Oh, Mrs. Banks. Sorry to drop in like this. I had some questions to ask Ella about her accident. My niece had an accident in the same area tonight.”

Mom’s unease turns to concern. “Is Jessie all right?”

“She’s in ICU, but we’re confident her natural healing ability will get her through the night until we can get her to shift and heal.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

“Say a prayer.”

We don’t really do the whole religion thing, but neither of us says anything. Mom goes to church on holidays but otherwise doesn’t really do the whole religion thing. Ethan is obviously very religious, and if he wants a prayer, then we’ll do that for him.

“Of course,” Mom says after a moment. “Can I heat you up some supper? We have a lot of leftover lasagna and garlic bread.”

“I won’t pass up a free meal. I’ve been out and running since around four this morning, and I haven’t stopped all day. Christmas Eve is a busy night for the department.”

“It is?” Mom makes her way into the kitchen, and Ethan follows her. “I would think it would be a peaceful night.”

“Lots of drinking, and we’ve had a suicide or two the last few years. Holidays are a bad time for some.”

“That’s awful.” Mom fixes him a plate and pops it in the microwave. “Go ahead and take off your coat, Sheriff. Do we need to turn the heat up for you?”

“No, I’ll be fine. The food and hot chocolate are more than enough.”

I leave them in the kitchen and walk back into the living room, my thoughts on Jessie. Ethan’s right. She’ll be okay. She’s a shifter, and they heal super-fast.

But if a human were to be in the same kind of accident? I don’t think they’d be okay. We’re going to have to deal with the ghost sooner rather than later.

I need to find out who she is. It’s better to know something about the ghost you’re trying to help. I’m hoping Google will give me some answers.

I start to go upstairs and pause. I should say a prayer for Jessie, but instead of turning my gaze upward, I look inward. There is one entity I know who has done nothing but help. Perhaps she can help again.

Rhea, if you can hear me, please be with Jessie and keep her safe while she heals. Make sure she wakes up for Christmas with her mom. They’ve been through enough. Please take care of them both.

There. Prayer said.

Now it’s time to go do some research on my Lady in White.

Chapter Ten

Much to my delight, both the library and the historical society have an online database that can be accessed. Gramps has logins for both. Thankfully, he keeps his passwords written down. I just had to decipher his handwriting enough to figure them out. Man may have lived hundreds or thousands of years, but his handwriting has not improved in all that time.

It takes about an hour of searching keywords and reading various news articles and documents before I find a mention of the house where I think the trouble originated. The first thing is a real estate listing for the house. It’s with the town real estate office and has been listed for sale since 1979. I guess an entire family burning to death on Christmas Eve will make no one in the town to want to buy it.

I search for the house fire next. It comes up in the library archives. They have all the old newspaper editions on microfiche stored online. It’s actually really nice. I’m sure some of the larger city libraries do this, but not small towns. It’s a bonus and will save time.

According to the article, the Miller family perished from smoke inhalation long before the fire got to them. They were all asleep in their beds when the fire department found the charred remains of the mother, father, twelve-year-old boy, and a three-year-old girl. It was as if they simply went to sleep and slept through the actual dying part.

Which makes no sense. If you’re choking, you’re going to wake up and frantically try to get out, not just lie there and die. It’s more like something supernatural stopped them from waking up. Like a pissed-off ghost who was angry, yet tried to protect those she killed in that house. But who is she? From everything the article said, the family was a very happy, loving one. It was considered a terrible tragedy at the time. Nothing would suggest a situation to create a Lady in White.

So perhaps something happened before? I start looking again for references about the property. It’s not long before I find a document in the historical society about the property and its dark past. The old house was torn down in 1948, and the one standing on it now was built that same year. It belonged to Jebediah Black before he sold it to the Millers after the family that lived there died. It was a mother and her three small children. I can’t find anything to tell me how they died, though.

I’m about to dive back into the library archives when Eli waltzes into my room, carrying my gloves and jacket.

“As soon as Molly settles Jamie down, you and I are on roof duty.”

“Why?” I don’t like heights. Not one little bit.

“Because Gramps has spent the last several hours putting together the beast of all beasts and he’s tired.”

“Shouldn’t there only be one set of footsteps for Jamie to hear?”

“No. He knows Santa has elves with him, so two sets won’t make him doubt it’s Santa.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes, you have to. I can’t be up there by myself. What if I fall off?”

“Then you scream bloody murder, and we’ll all come outside and make sure you’re not dead.”

“And how would that help Jamie? Instead of Santa, he’d be traumatized by seeing me fall off the roof Santa is supposed to be on.”

Dang it.

“I hate heights, Eli. You know this.”

“I do, and that’s why you’re going to be very careful and look only at me.”

“Easier said than done. Do you know how hard it is not to look down when you’re high up?”

He grins. “Impossible, but I have faith in you, Shortcake.”

I don’t have faith in me. I’ll fall flat and break a bone.

“I did ask Cecily, but she made it clear she’s not going up on the roof in the middle of a snowstorm. Not even for her baby brother.”

“Fine, but don’t expect me to save you if you go sliding past me.”

He only grins. “Whatcha workin’ on over there?”

“Trying to figure out who our ghost is. Jessie and her mom wrecked on the same road we did tonight. She’s in ICU. Ethan said she’s too weak to shift and heal, so we have to wait it out until she is.”

His face pales. “She’s going to be okay, though, right?”

“He thinks so.”

“Is her mom okay?”

“Yeah, little banged up, but Jess took the brunt of the damage. Which means we need to figure this out sooner rather than later.”

“Agreed. What have you found?”

“Nothing, really. There was another tragedy in the original house that was torn down in 1948. A mother and her three children died, but I haven’t been able to figure out how. Nothing I’ve read so far mentions the manner of death.”

“Gramps might know, and if doesn’t, we should be able to talk to some of the old guys in town. They might remember.”

“You’re assuming anyone is still alive…” I stop before I finish the sentence, remembering I live in a town full of Supernaturals. They live long, long lives.

“Exactly. You sure the family that died in the fifties isn’t responsible for our ghost?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not ruling it out either. From all accounts, they were a happy, loving family. No rumors, and the neighbors didn’t have a bad thing to say about them.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Mom pokes her head in. “Jamie and I are going to his room. He and Cecily already built the tent, and now all we have to do is wait.”

“How long?”

“I’d say give us fifteen minutes. He’s falling asleep standing up.”

Considering it’s after nine and he’s full, I’m surprised he didn’t fall asleep hours ago, but then Mom has been making sure he didn’t nap so he’d sleep tonight. She used to do the same with me and Cecily. Dad spent more Christmases on assignment than with us. It was usually just her putting everything together for Christmas morning. She needed us asleep.

“Sure thing, but have you checked the Santa Tracker to see where he is right now?”

Her eyes widen. “I think he’s in New York, at least he was a few minutes ago.”

“Then we’ll need longer than fifteen minutes. Even Santa might have a hard time bouncing from New York to West Virginia in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll read him ’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

“Read it slowly, Mom.”

She nods and slips out of the room. Good thinking on Eli’s part. I forgot Jamie had been religiously watching the Santa Tracker.

“So, back to your ghost.” Eli motions toward the computer. “Tonight seems to be a hotbed for it.”

“How do you know?”

“I did some checking with the sheriff’s office earlier, and I talked to Sabien Blackburne as well. That road has more accidents on Christmas Eve than any other night during the two weeks it’s active. Which makes me believe it might have something to do with the family that died on Christmas Eve.”

“So, what, you want to go out there tonight during a snowstorm to try to question her?”

He shrugs. “It’s not far from here, and Gramps put snow tires and chains on the four-wheeler in case we needed it to get out. We’re expecting a lot of snow tonight and tomorrow.”

“I don’t know, Eli…it’s Christmas Eve. I think we should stay in.” And I have this hinky feeling in my gut that says going out there on that road tonight is dangerous.

“Your Guardian is right, but tonight is not the night to confront the ghost.”

We both jump at the sound of Selena’s voice. She’s standing by the door, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Why do you like to sneak up on people?” Eli grouches. “It’s common courtesy to knock before entering.”

“Those are your rules and customs, not mine. I have a lot of work to do tonight, but I heard the conversation and came to intercede. If you go out there tonight, I see your death. Normally, I wouldn’t alert you to this, but it is a ghost I asked you to look into. I don’t want your premature death on my hands because you felt you had to go out there.”

“I have this hinky feeling.”

Selena frowns, not understanding the term.

“A bad feeling. I was going to say something before you popped in.”

“Your instincts are correct in this instance,” Selena says, nodding. “Your death date changed suddenly, and I started to listen, understanding instantly why the change.”

“Death date? What is that, exactly? You’ve mentioned it before, but didn’t explain.”

“Each person has a particular date they are set to die. It can change depending upon the choices they make as yours did today. Despite your…hinky feeling, you would have gone and died.”

“Wait…you know when I’m going to die?”

“All reapers do. It is like a neon sign flashing on your forehead. Like now, yours has changed again to its original date.”

“I don’t see anything like that.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re not a full-blown reaper. As a living reaper, all you should be able to do is see ghosts and communicate with them.”

“How about feel what they’re feeling?”

Selena frowns. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but it’s unusual. Have you been feeling what they do?”

I nod. “I have from the beginning, just not to the degree I am now.”

“That is understandable, given the season we find ourselves in. Humans tend to get more emotional during the holiday season, and if you are experiencing these emotions, then you will be more emotional.”

She says it with absolutely no feeling or empathy for the ghosts or me. I really hope I don’t end up like her one day.

“There has to be some sort of empath or Seer in your lineage somewhere for you to be able to feel what they feel without being a full-fledged reaper.” Eli narrows his eyes. “I’ll look into that. If you do, you may end up with more abilities than we first thought.”

Selena looks alarmed. “That would be unfortunate.”

“Why?” Eli and I both ask.

“Because it will hinder your work. If you get caught up in the emotions, it will make it harder for you to become efficient at your duties.”

She’s lying. I’m not sure why or how I know, but she is.

“If that’s all, Selena, we have to go up on the roof to make Jamie think Santa’s here.”

“And I have many more deaths to attend this night.”

She doesn’t even say goodbye, just disappears.

Eli looks at me and mouths the words, She’s lying.

I nod in response, but it’s best not to talk about this while she could still be listening.

“Ready to go freeze to death up on the deathtrap? I think it’s like ten degrees or something out there.”

“The wind’s picking up too, so we’d best get up there. I don’t want either of us to fall off due to a wind gust.”

Putting on my coat and gloves, I follow him downstairs to go roof climbing for my baby brother. We’ll deal with Selena’s lying later.

Right now, we have to be Santa, his elves, and his reindeer.

Yay, us.

Chapter Eleven

Christmas morning came early. Jamie was awake at the crack of dawn. He apparently snuck downstairs and saw all the things Santa left as well as the half-eaten cookie left on the plate and all the milk drunk. I stuck my head out of my bedroom when I heard him squeal. Mom came running, thinking something was wrong, and caught him before he dived into the presents at four a.m. He grumbled about going back to bed, but she finally got him tucked back in, promising we’d be up in a few hours.

Jamie lasted until six thirty. Then he started knocking on doors, demanding to get up. Eli and I had been up until around one trying to find out more about the old Monroe property, but there wasn’t really anything else to discover. We’d need to talk to some of the townspeople who remembered them and anyone who lived there previously.

I still have stuff left to open under the tree, much to Jamie’s horror. He’d ripped into everything with his name on it after going crazy over what Santa left him, which included a brand new bike without the training wheels. I predict many falls with even more bruises and scrapes are in his future.

He’s currently sitting on the couch watching the Christmas parade on TV. We all watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and he loved it so much, Mom promised we’d all go to New York next year and watch it in person. I thought his eyeballs would just about fall out of his head when she told him that. Little things like that mean more to him than all the material gifts we can give him. He had nothing, and now he has people who truly love him and work to make sure he smiles every day. If that’s not a Christmas miracle, then I don’t know what is.

“We are not going anywhere today,” Gramps announces, coming into the house. “There’s a good foot, foot and a half of snow outside. When they said heavy snow, I don’t think they realized just how much was going to fall. Roads are covered, and I don’t think the snowplows are going to make much headway. The ice storm we got yesterday will see to that.”

He looks like Santa with his red winter coat and black snow boots. His long beard has melting snow all over it, as does his red hat.

“Molly, you got them sticky bun things done?”

“No sugary things unless you eat breakfast too.”

“Them buns is my breakfast, girl.”

I smile evilly. “Nope. You’re eating egg white omelets and turkey bacon, and then you can have a sticky bun.”

“You take all the fun out of my food, Ella Grace.”

“It keeps you healthy.”

He grunts but sits down to take his boots off. Mom’ll have his head if he tracks snow all over her clean floors. He’s experienced her ire over that before, and trust me, after having gone through it myself, Gramps won’t ever again make that mistake.

It’s a little while later when there’s a knock at the door. It’s barely eight, so I’m not sure who it can be. Eli yawns and waves me away when I go to answer the door. He does instead, and when he comes back, he’s carrying presents. His expression is cautious.

“Uh…a guy dropped these off. They’re from Major Banks.”

Mom’s face goes white, but she recovers quickly. “Put them in the office, Eli. They’ll need to be checked.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turns and walks down the hallway.

“Is that your daddy?” Jamie’s attention bounces between me and an old Yogi Bear Christmas special we found on TV.

“It is.”

“Don’t you want to open them?”

“We will in a little while. Right now, I’m still trying to clean up the mess from this morning.” I’ve filled two garbage bags with wrapping paper, plastic, and bows. Eli stacked the cardboard in the garage already. Trash doesn’t run for another few days, and I don’t remember if it’s the week they pick up recyclables or not. 

And gifts from Dad are a whole other bag of troubles. Before anyone touches them, they need to be checked for all sorts of spyware, both real world and supernatural. I wouldn’t put it past Dad to do that to keep eyes on us in the house. I’m half tempted to throw them in the garbage bag with the other trash.

“Ella, do you think we can find reindeer tracks where they ate their food with all the snow?”

“No, I don’t think so. The snow would have covered them up. There’s over a foot of it out there.”

His head drops down, and his expression turns sad. “I wanted to see them.”

“Me too. There’s always next year, though, and you did find what was left of the cookies, so we know he was here.”

“And Mama Molly and I heard Santa on the roof last night,” he whispers. “She said I had to be very quiet so he would think we were asleep.”

“How did you stay in your room? I would have snuck downstairs to try to catch him.”

He shakes his head violently. “Nooooo. He might have got mad and not left me any toys.”

“No. He would have left and come back when you were asleep.”

“Then why didn’t he leave me toys before when Mama and Daddy were alive?”

Now there’s a loaded question and a half.

“You know, even Santa can be afraid,” Cecily pipes up. She’s been texting for the last hour while I cleaned up the trash. We will have words about that later.

“Why would he be afraid?”

“You were afraid of your daddy, weren’t you?”

He nods.

“Maybe your daddy scared Santa too, and he was just as afraid to come in your house as you were.”

His eyes widen. “He would never be afraid to come here.”

“Nope, we’re all non-scary people. Santa will always find you here.”

Major discussion averted with the save from Cecily. It earns her a less harsh talking-to about shirking cleanup.

“Kids, come eat!” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Breakfast is ready.”

Jamie looks at the toys all around him, torn about his tummy rumbling and leaving his new goodies.

“They’re not going to disappear,” I assure him. “However, breakfast might. Gramps and Eli look ready to inhale it all, and I can smell Mom’s sticky buns from here.”

He jumps up and runs to the table, jabbering away about how Santa didn’t ignore him all these years, that Santa was afraid.

“You did good, Cec.”

“Yeah,” she agrees and goes to join them at the table.

It’s about three hours later when I corner Gramps in his office. He’s using some kind of device to scan the gifts from Dad.

“Gramps? Can I talk to you?”

He looks up and grunts, his version of yes.

Plopping down on the couch, I wait for him to give me his full attention. When he’s satisfied with whatever he’s doing to the gifts, he puts the device down and comes to join me.

“What’s on your mind?”

“You said the rumors about the White Lady brought you back to town.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know the Monroes before they died?”

“No. They were dead by the time I came back. But I did do my research on them.”

“What did you find out?”

“The husband worked at the local garage fixing cars, and the mother was a kindergarten teacher through the week and then taught Sunday school for the church. Methodist, if I remember right. By all accounts, they were good, honest people.”

“Were they Supes?”

“No. They were as human as you can get. They knew the secret, though, and were trusted. Which was a big deal back then. The town wasn’t as open as they are today about who and what they are.”

“I don’t think I’d call them open.”

He laughs. “No, I suppose not, but it’s a lot different from what it was back then. Times changed, and people’s perception of the threat changed with it.”

“Which is weird. Back then there weren’t cell phones with cameras and all the tech we have today. You’d think they’d safeguard the secret more today than they did back then.”

“Movies and books have changed humans’ perception of us. Our kind has been romanticized, and the fear factor has greatly lessened.”

“I didn’t think about that.”

“We trade one perception for another as time changes. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, sometimes that’s a good thing.”

“And sometimes it’s a mix of both, like the perception we live in today. One where Eli can’t openly claim his parents because of who his father is.”

“Exactly. It’s a mixed bag of blessings. He has them back, but he can’t openly claim them. I think he’d rather have that than nothing.”

I know that, which is why this sucks so much. I wish he could have them come here for dinner, but that’s impossible.

“Why don’t we invite the Blackburnes over for Christmas dinner? That wouldn’t be too far out of the realm of possibility, considering we owe them so much for helping to find me.”

Gramps’ eyes twinkle. “No, I don’t suppose that would be too far out of the realm of possibility, and I know for a fact none of them cook worth a dang.”

“Think they can get here with all the snow on the ground?”

“Sabien owns snowmobiles. They’ll get here.”

Snowmobiles…those could get me and Eli out to the road to try to find the ghost. I keep that little tidbit of information to myself. Gramps will nix the whole idea of inviting the Blackburnes and Ava over if he knows what I’m thinking.

“Gramps, do you have any inkling who the ghost might be if not Mrs. Monroe?”

“Well, I’ve done some digging, and as far as I know, there’s been no bad blood at that house. Bunch of death, but no cheating husbands or grieving folks.”

“What about the original house?”

He cocks his head. “I looked into that. Nothing that I can find. Seems to me like you might need to talk to the ghost to figure this one out.”

“It’s always easier when you know something about the ghost before you go into the whole ‘you need to move on’ spiel.”

Gramps grunts.

I nod toward the gifts. “They clear?”

“Far as I can tell. I found nothing to indicate they’re rigged with any sort of spyware. Now it comes to if you, Molly, and your sister want to open them or not. We can box them up and send them back to your father if you’d rather not have them.”

“But?” I ask after a minute. There was definitely a but there.

“But not sure you should do that. He’s the only father you have. Forgiveness might not be in the cards now, but down the road, you might find it in your heart to forgive him even if you don’t accept the things he does.”

“That’s not coming any time soon.”

“I get that, girl, but you never know what kind of wisdom and forgiveness age might bring. Might be best to put them in the attic and wait to see how you feel.”

“Cecily will throw hers away if you hand it to her.”

“I know.”

“Put them in the attic.”

“I’ll do that. Why don’t you go help your mama in the kitchen? I heard her complaining about all the things that still need to be done.”

“Sure, Gramps.” I stand and kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks for being such a good grandfather. You call Sabien and invite him over.”

Leaving him there, I head into the kitchen to help Mom and inform her we’re having more guests.

Chapter Twelve

Eli’s sister looks remarkably like him, only with brown eyes instead of his aqua. She and her brothers, Dan and Caleb, inherited their father’s eye color while Eli and Benny share their mother’s. Ava and her mate, Jason Reed, seem incredibly close. They even gravitate toward each other unconsciously.

It’s a unique relationship and one that makes me reconsider telling Cecily about her own future mate. She’s too young yet to even consider dating him, but I think if she knew he was there and would do anything to protect her, it might actually help her gain some peace of mind.

It’s been really nice having a full house, though. The entire Blackburne clan came for dinner, with Saidie and Aleric tagging along. Saidie’s parents aren’t as accepting of her gift as mine are. Having the dead follow you around in the flesh is a little different from simply talking to ghosts. I’m not sure what I’d do if I woke up to a zombie sitting on my bed. It’s apparently happened to Saidie, only it was her dog and not a human zombie. Still, I’d freak out either way.

Things are winding down and people are drowsy. Several have dozed off. Mom simply smiled and said to let them be. Cecily and I cleaned up while Mom entertained her guests. She’s in her element when she’s hosting a party. Molly Banks was known for her event planning skills, especially last-minute ones. She thrives under pressure. Cecily and I both told her she needs to open her own event planning service. She could do birthdays, special events like weddings, and other big events for charities. She’s already good at it. Might as well let people pay her to be good at it. She promised to think about it.

“Mr. Blackburne, can I pick your brain for a minute?”

Sabien looks up and smiles. “Anytime, Ella.”

“Come on back to the library.” I point to Jamie, who’s still playing with his new toys in front of the fireplace. “Little ears, you know.”

Mom frowns but doesn’t ask any questions as I lead Sabien to Gramps’ office. Eli follows.

“So, what’s on your mind?” Sabien sits in the armchair, and Eli and I take the couch.

“You’ve been in town a long time?”

“Yes, we built the house before West Virginia was even a state. I’d say I’ve been here a while.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you feel old.”

Sabien laughs. “No offense taken. I am old.”

So’s Gramps, but Sabien sounds much younger.

“Do you know anything about the abandoned Monroe property?”

His smile dies. “Why?”

“Well, I think it’s haunted by a White Lady.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I saw her the night we had our accident.”

“You’re sure you saw her?”

“Yeah. I thought we hit her, but everyone but me saw a deer. I saw her again at the base of the mountain. And in the ambulance.”

“The ambulance?” Eli asks sharply. “You didn’t say that before.”

“I just remembered it. She was sitting next to Jackson. Then she cupped my cheek, and it hurt so much.”

“I’m not surprised you didn’t remember it,” Sabien says. “You suffered very serious head trauma. What did she look like?”

“Dark hair, brown eyes, very pretty. And she was wearing a white dress of some kind.”

“A regular dress, wedding dress, maybe a nightgown?”

“I don’t remember. I only remember the color.”

“Hmmm.”

“We thought it might have had something to do with the Millers, but I can’t find anything outside of the fire that would point to the kind of rage needed to create a White Lady.”

“It’s not rage that creates one, but pain. They’re in so much pain they lose themselves and do horrible things.”

“Like killing their kids.”

“Yes, and when they realize what they’ve done, it only adds to the pain they’re in, and they kill themselves out of pain and shame.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be since you’ve been around for a while?”

“Aye, I do. Someone from my own past, I believe.”

“Who?”

“My mother.”

Eli and I both rear back like we’ve been slapped.

“Alesha and I grew up in New Orleans, but my grandparents built the house here in West Virginia for when the family wanted to get out of the New Orleans heat in the summer. When I was ten and Alesha was seven, we came here for the Christmas holiday. Mama wanted to see snow for Christmas.”

I nod. Most people would want snow for Christmas if they could get it.

“It was Christmas Eve and getting quite late. Mama had held dinner for over an hour and assumed Papa had gotten lost in one of his experiments again. She decided to go fetch him home for supper.”

Eli and I glance at each other. This can’t be a happy ending if it resulted in his mother turning into a White Lady.

“My father rented the house that was on the Miller property to use as a sort of gentleman’s getaway where he’d go and spend time with friends from town, experiment with magic, and as we discovered a short time later, to meet his mistress. I rushed after her, not wanting her to get hurt. It was snowing outside. We found Papa and his mistress in the parlor, involved in a state of undress, shall we say.”

Uh-huh. They were having sex. Why do all the older generation have such a hard time saying that?

“Mama started screaming at him. He got dressed and tried to talk to her, but by that time, she was enraged. She’d had a miscarriage less than a month previously, and he was now involved in an affair with another woman. And on Christmas Eve. Is it any wonder there was no talking to her at that point?”

Nope. I’d have been mad, too.

“She told him to stay there and to never set foot in her house again. She turned to leave, and he reached out, catching her by the arm. Only she jerked herself away from him, but she lost her balance and fell, hitting her head on the stone hearth. She never woke up, slipping into a coma and dying later that day. Alesha was inconsolable. And we both were so angry at Papa, especially when he married his mistress a few months later.”

Ouch.

“My mother’s name was Noelle. She died on that property. It could very well be her. She had long brown hair and brown eyes like my sister. She looked a great deal like Alesha. I favor my father.” He pulls his phone out and navigates to a photo of his sister. “Did she look like Alesha?”

I’ve met his sister a handful of times, but without the photo in front of me, I can’t say I’d remember what she looks like. Thinking back to the woman in the ambulance, I can say she bears a striking resemblance to Alesha Blackburne.

“She does look like your sister.”

“Have you never tried looking to see if it’s her?” Eli asks. “The accidents that happen on the road near that property are staggering in number.”

“I have. Many, many times. She never shows herself to me or to Alesha. We’ve tried every magical spell and artifact we can find.”

“Ghosts can’t be compelled by magic to do anything they don’t want to do,” I say softly. “You can manipulate their energy, sure, but you can’t make them appear unless they desire to do so.”

“I wasn’t aware,” Sabien murmurs.

“There’s a lot about ghosts that most aren’t aware of. The knowledge I have shocks even me sometimes. I know things I haven’t read or learned from others. I just know it. My teacher says it’s because I’m a reaper and I have access to their knowledge. It’s embedded in me.”

“I didn’t know that either, but then we don’t know much about reapers in general and nothing about living reapers.”

“Because we don’t want to be trapped and manipulated by magic wielders.” The words spew out of me with such hate, I slap a hand over my mouth. “I don’t know where that came from.”

Sabien smiles. “As you said, there are things embedded into you. Even certain prejudices, although I’m not sure that one is wrong. My kind have tried to harness the power of the reapers since the beginning. Not I. I have no wish to control when a person lives and dies. That is too much power for anyone who is not deemed worthy of it.”

“That’s good to know, at least.”

He smiles. “Now, what do we do about my mother?”

“Well, I have a plan.”

“You do?” he and Eli both ask.

“Yeah, but it requires borrowing your snowmobiles so we can get out there. The roads are going to be closed for days, and we’ll lose our chance to help her until next year if we don’t move quickly. I was thinking we could go out there tonight and try to help her.”

“Of course. I would like to be there if possible.”

“We may not be able to help her,” Eli warns. “Most of the time, these types of ghosts have to be put down by a blessed blade. They’re too far gone to reach. You sure you can handle that if it is your mother?”

“If it means finally putting her soul to rest, then yes, I’m good with that.”

Eli sighs and looks at me. He understands what I’m thinking. If we have to put her down with a blessed blade, it means the ghost will actually die. Her energy signature will evaporate and be no more. I guess you could say her soul would be at peace simply because she won’t exist anymore, but I’m not sure telling Sabien that would put him at peace.

Eli nods and looks away.

He agrees. Letting Sabien believe this small misconception will do him more good than the actual truth.

“Do you think we can go tonight?” I ask.

“Tonight?”

“It’s Christmas, and maybe we’ll find a little of that Christmas magic my sister is always talking about.”

“Or a Christmas miracle,” Sabien says. “We could use one of those.”

“Are you religious?” I ask out of curiosity.

“Yes. My sister and I both are. You can’t live as long as I have and not believe in a higher power. I’ve seen things that can only be explained by a God who watches over us. My faith has gotten me through some very bad times in my life. We all either come to our faith or we don’t. I don’t push my religion on others, and I don’t condemn anyone who doesn’t believe.”

“That’s a Christmas miracle in and of itself,” Eli says.

Sabien nods. “Let’s go inform the others of our plans. I don’t want them to worry.”

“Mom will do that whether or not.”

“But she won’t be as worried if I’m with you.”

Maybe, but I doubt it.

Instead of arguing, we all get up and file out to go face the wrath of Molly Banks for going out to do what I’m supposed to do.

And on Christmas.

Chapter Thirteen

Did I say I was getting used to the snow and the cold? And that I was starting to like it? I have since changed my mind. It’s barely after ten at night, and the temperature has already fallen into the teens. The wind is kicking the snow, and it looks like sheets of the stuff is coming at us. It doesn’t help that the snow started to fall quite heavily again either.

Why does this ghost have to haunt the road only during the last two weeks of December?

“You frozen yet?” Eli asks, his grin devilish.

I glare at him and move aside so Sabien can join us, handing me a tactical flashlight that cuts through the darkest areas a good twenty feet in front of me. We got them out of the closet at the house. It’s the one thing Mom insisted on keeping when we moved into Gramps’ place.

“You either get used to the cold or you don’t. I grew up in New Orleans where it’s warm year ’round, for the most part. Well, warmer than what winters here are.” Sabien looks around and studies the area. “Is this close to where you hit the deer, Elijah?”

It’s so odd to hear him referred to as that. Not even Gramps calls Eli “Elijah.” It’s a beautiful, if old and biblical, name.

“Yes. We’d just passed the house. See this line of trees here? This is where we went over. Not sure where Jessie and her mom had their accident.”

“Do you agree, Ella?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. I just remember the woman and then the vehicle tumbling down the mountain. I wasn’t paying attention to much else.”

Sabien sighs. “How does this work? Do we just call out for her or…” He shrugs, unsure of himself, which I don’t think is something that happens often to Sabien Blackburne.

“I mean, you could try, but I doubt it’d work.”

“I see the ghost hunters on TV do that a lot.”

Eli and I exchange glances. Sabien Blackburne watches ghost hunter shows?

The man looks away, embarrassed.

“Usually, a ghost is in charge of who they show themselves to and, most importantly, when. Most ghosts appear only to the person off by themselves. They live in darkness and shadows, and that’s a lonely existence. Especially since the majority of people they chose to reveal themselves to honestly can’t see them. They’re not sensitive enough or their mind is closed to the possibility of the supernatural.”

“Is that what you do? Go sit by yourself or something?”

“Or something. I’m a little different. The reaping energy inside of me calls out to them, pulling them to me much the same way a lighthouse does for sailors on a dark and stormy night. I’m their beacon in the storm.”

“So, do they have to come to you when you call?”

“Eventually, but that doesn’t mean they can’t hide for a while. Just because I can sense them doesn’t mean I can make them appear at will. That’s what makes this gift scary. I know something’s there most of the time, but not what or the type of ghost. I’ve been terrified on more than one occasion.”

“Even at Marco’s?”

I smile slightly. “No. He has an impenetrable salt ring around the house. Ghosts can’t slip through it. The iron bracelet I wear helps when I’m outside of the property, but it’s not foolproof. Some of the strong ones can still touch me.”

“Is that…”

“Let’s get a move on,” Eli interrupts him. “It’s freezing, and I don’t want to be out here longer than necessary.”

“You’re right, of course.” Sabien scans the area again. “I did not mean to delay. I was simply curious.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Blackburne. I understand, but we do need to get this show on the road. If you and Eli can be quiet, I’ll do my best to reach her.”

They nod, and I turn back to the road. Or what I think is the road. It’s snow-covered and hard to tell where the road ends and the forest floor begins. Walking a little distance away from Eli and Sabien, I close my eyes and breathe in and out, long, deep breaths while I try to clear my thoughts and look for that bright blue light inside that is my reaping ability.

It lives in the snow-covered forest of Germany behind my feelings of terror and helplessness. I was lost in the snow once, and it took them a long time to find me. I thought I was going to die, to freeze to death, but my father eventually found me. I hold on to that as I let myself feel all that pain and fear. And as I break through the trees into an opening, it’s there I find the pulsing blue light. I reach for it, wrap my fingers around it, and the fear falls away. I’m surrounded by the cold, and it warms me through and through. The cold of Death, and in this moment, I am Death.

Opening my eyes, I reach out and search the area for the woman. There is nothing but silence. Not even a whisper of a ghost. The Sandman had eaten them all when he was here, but I’ve felt a few filter back into the area. Not tonight, though. It’s an empty, desolate stretch of road.

I’m not sure how long I stand there, feeling and listening for any whisper of her. She’s not here, though. Why? What causes her to appear some of the time and not others? Does she have a quota of accidents or something? No, that can’t be right. This area is prone to accidents only during the last two weeks of December. When she would have died.

I think back to what I know of the legend of the White Lady, or the Woman in White, as Eli calls her. They develop because of a deep pain. Noelle did suffer that with the discovery of her husband cheating on her. Sabien never said if his parents loved each other, but if she became what she is now because of that, she at least had to love his father. He cheated, so that goes to reason he didn’t love her as much. I’m not going to say he didn’t love her, because as I’ve come to discover, people can love you and still hurt you deeply.

But this isn’t about the father. It’s about the mother. And her feelings.

“Mr. Blackburne?” I call out softly. “Can you come here?”

He’s there a moment later. “Did you find her?”

“No, not yet. A question, though. Did your mother love your father?”

“Mama adored him. If I ever find someone to spend the rest of my days with, I can only hope to love them as she did him. That she will love me the same way.”

“And your father, how did he feel about your mother?”

His smile turns bitter. “He cared for her. Of that, I’m sure, but he married his mistress three months after her death. And made us call her mother. Did he love Mama? Maybe once upon a time, but no. I don’t think so. Why?”

“To become the ghost that she’s become, there has to be an inciting incident that caused her so much pain, it drove her to madness. What could that be?”

“She found them in bed together.”

“Sometimes that’s enough,” Eli says from behind us. “The intensity of the pain drives them to lash out, to murder their own children because they are a part of him.”

“Murder their own children?” Sabien whispers, his face going pale in the moonlight.

“Yes. It’s typical of this kind of ghost. They end up taking their own lives to get away from the pain of what they’ve done when they realize it. Not all of them, though. It can be a terrible pain that has nothing to do with their husband that drives them to becoming what they do.”

“I, uhm…could it be something they learn after death?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

“There’s a terrible secret my family holds.”

Eli glances at me, curious. “Would it drive her to hate so much she’d lash out?”

“Yes. I thought at first she was aware of it, but I’ve since come to learn she was not. Our stepmother, however, was aware.”

“Is it something you feel comfortable sharing?”

“No, but if it will help my mother find peace, then I will.”

“Let’s try to find her first. It might not be your mother. No sense in spilling tea if there’s no need.”

His eyes are dark and solemn. “Perhaps that is best.”

“She’s not out here. Let’s move to the house.”

“The house?” Eli’s head swivels in that direction. “I’m not sure it’s safe to enter. Who knows what kind of dangers lie there?”

“It was in the house she discovered her husband’s betrayal. Perhaps she sleeps there.”

“But it’s not even the same house,” Eli objects.

“Not to us, but maybe to her, it is.” I don’t have time for more arguments because it’s freezing out here. I want to go home and take a hot bath. So I start walking back toward the house. Eli mutters something I can’t hear, but he starts trudging behind me.

The house is dark, and the shadows around it seem thicker. This is where she is. I knew it. The vibes it’s giving off scream, “Stop, do not enter.” The place is a black hole of pain.

“Stay here,” I say and step up onto the porch that wraps around the house.

“Ella…”

“No, Eli. You need to stay out here. You know ghosts feel more comfortable when it’s just a solitary person.”

“This is a murderous ghost! I’d feel more comfortable in there with you.”

“As would I,” Sabien agrees.

“Do you two want to find her and stop her from hurting anyone else?”

They both turn mute.

Stubborn men.

“Then sit your butts out here and let me do my thing. Eli will know if I’m in danger. You can rush in and save the day if that becomes the case. Okay?”

Neither agrees, but they don’t disagree either.

Time to go find my ghost.

Chapter Fourteen

To my surprise, the door is unlocked and swings open easily. I thought I’d have to break a window or something to get in, but nope.

The inside of the house feels even more oppressive than outside. I swing my flashlight beam into the interior. Nothing but dust and shadows inside. Part of me doesn’t want to enter the darkness, but I have to. The accidents need to stop, and for that to happen, she needs to find peace.

Shaking my head, I step into the darkness and reach out with the light of my reaping ability. This house is not empty. There are so many ghosts trapped here, all feeding her rage and pain. Nothing but suffering meets my attempts to call out to her.

Walking farther into the house, I look around. A long hallway stretches out in front of me, with a staircase along the left wall that leads to the upper floor. On the right is the living room, and farther up, there are more doors. It’s definitely not open-concept.

“Hello?” I call. I don’t think anyone would be in here, given how oppressive it feels, but I want to make sure. Abandoned houses are prime real estate for druggies and the homeless. Not that I’ve seen any homeless people in Jacob’s Fork, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Better safe than sorry.

When no one answers, I go deeper into the house, calling out this time internally, hoping she’ll come to me. This could be something that takes days of repeating, but I’m hoping with it being the holiday, and lots of accidents happening between yesterday and today, traditionally, she’ll be more active.

I walk through all the rooms downstairs, but she doesn’t appear. If she’s going to be anywhere, it’ll be upstairs in the bedroom. That was the beginning of her pain. I really don’t want to go up there, though.

Gritting my teeth, I go back to the stairs and start up. There’s this wave of anger that hits me right in the chest and tries to force me back. Maybe she doesn’t want to face her pain any more than I do. But she must.

The upstairs is so dark that even my high-powered flashlight doesn’t want to cut through it. Which should be my clue to turn around and run, but instead, I start opening doors, looking for the master bedroom.

It’s the last door at the end of the hall. There are two doors inside, one for the closet and maybe one for the attached bathroom. Or another closet, maybe.

“Hello?” I call as I enter. This room is so much colder than the rest of the house. There’s ice on the windows, so thick you can’t even see outside.

There’s something about a truly haunted house. Even people with no sensitivity to the supernatural can feel the difference. The houses are darker, and they feel like you’re suffocating, and you get physically sick to your stomach at times. I’ve been in a few, thanks to Selena. She’s taken me on a few reaper hunts and made sure I could tell the difference between creaky pipes and an actual ghost.

This house is definitely haunted.

“Noelle?” I try again, using Sabien’s mother’s name. Maybe it’s her; maybe it’s not. But if it is, the use of her name might throw her off her game a little. “I’m not going away until you talk to me.”

Don’t. The word is whispered in my ear, and I jump, not expecting the raspy male voice so close.

“Don’t what?”

Don’t call her. She’ll hurt you.

“I’m here to help her, to help all of you.”

You can’t. Just go.

“Not an option.”

I tried to warn you.

He leaves, running for all he’s worth. I may not see him physically, but I feel his energy depart. Leaving me alone with whatever is in here.

And it is in here. I can feel the energy grow and pulse around me.

“Hello?” I call, hoping she can feel I mean her no harm. “I’m Ella. I saw you the night of my accident. You were in the road.”

The darkness creeps closer, and the chill in the air deepens. She’s angry.

“You followed us into the ravine, and then I saw you again when I was in the ambulance. Do you remember me?”

Movement flickers in the shadows. The air grows thicker and pushes at me, trying to force me out of the room, but I dig in and stand my ground. She needs to face what she’s done, and if she can’t, then she needs to be put down, but one way or another, she is going to stop hurting people.

“I’m not leaving until you talk to me. I’m one of the few people alive who can see and hear you. Don’t you want to tell someone what happened to you?”

Pulses of yellow light filter through the darkness like flashes of lightning. The air crackles with electricity. Can a ghost manipulate the electrical field around them? The house certainly doesn’t have electricity, so she has to be using the elements. This can’t be a good sign.

“Noelle? Is that your name?”

Complete and utter silence meets my question. It only adds to the feeling of ick that coats my skin.

“I got all night to sit here and wait on you to talk to me. I’m not leaving.”

Her anger swells in the room, wrapping itself around me. It’s more than a little terrifying, if I’m honest with myself. Ghosts aren’t usually this angry, but the worst ghost I’ve ever dealt with was at Lake Cree. That one is like a baby compared to this one and the hateful energy she’s emitting.

Leave!

The scream vibrates through my head with such force, I stumble back, falling. The floor is like slick ribbons of ice, the ghost pulling from the moisture of the snow outside to create this frozen tomb.

“Noelle, I can’t leave. I’m here to help you.”

The yellow pulses of light get brighter, and I’m very aware of the fact that if it’s electrical energy, she could fry me whenever she feels like it.

I try to get up, but my feet slide out from under me. The floor is a solid sheet of ice. When did that happen? It was slick a minute ago, but not like this. Since I can’t get up, I scoot backward to try to get to the door, but it slams shut, blocking my escape.

I guess she doesn’t want me to leave anymore.

Talking is my only way out of this until Eli gets up here. I know he’s coming because I felt him move. He knows I’m in danger, and he’ll get in this room no matter what. This time when I scoot back, I shift so I’m not in front of the door. He’ll kick it in, and I don’t want it to slam into the back of my head. When my back hits the wall, I look around, trying to see her.

But she’s not showing herself to me.

“Noelle. I know what happened. You came to find your husband on Christmas Eve, and he was in bed with his mistress. Sabien told me the story. Did you know he and your daughter, Alesha, come up here all the time to see if you’ll talk to them? They’re not like me, though. They can’t see you if you won’t let them. Why don’t you want to talk to them?”

Wind so sharp it cuts whips around me. Warm liquid drips down my cheek, and I reach up to touch it. Wet and sticky. Was she able to actually cut me with her energy? I did not know ghosts could do this. When did they get this ability? Selena has never said anything about this.

Calm down. Stay focused. Remind her who she is.

Unless it’s not her, and I manage to piss her off even more.

“Ella!” Eli bellows from below.

See? Boy knows when to come running.

Only I don’t want to murder Sabien’s mother if I can help it.

“Your name is Noelle Blackburne. Your children’s names are Sabien and Alesha Blackburne. You fell and hit your head on Christmas Eve after walking in on your husband and his mistress. Do you remember that? It had to hurt so much.”

The pulsing in the room gets more agitated.

“I know what it’s like to think someone you love loved you more than anything else in the world. It hurts so much you can’t breathe. The pain is crippling. And then the anger comes. You hate them. And that hurts you even more because you still love them. For me, it was my dad. I was a daddy’s girl. He was the sun and the moon in my eyes. I knew he’d always protect me, but when it came down to it, he didn’t.”

I look around and notice the flashing lights have dimmed ever so slightly.

“He works for the military. He hurts people who are different. Then I became different, and when the military took me, he tried to cover up what happened. He knew what they did to me and pretended it was all forgotten. I didn’t remember it for a long time. But when I did and confronted him, he chose his work in the military over me. He was okay with the torture they put me through. And I hate him for it. So much that some days I wish I could go back to not remembering because the pain of hating the person you love is heartbreaking. To not remember why you hurt so much, I get it. It’s the easy road, but what you’re doing here, hurting innocent people because of how much you hurt, that’s not right, Noelle. What would your children think of what you’re doing? Would they be proud of their mother?”

“Ella!” Eli shouts from close by.

“I’m fine,” I call. “I’m just talking to Noelle. We’re fine.”

“Then open the door.”

“No, not yet. We’re still talking.”

“I’m right outside the door.”

“That’s Eli,” I tell her. “He is probably the only reason I’m still even a little sane right now. He’s my best friend, and he makes sure I always feel safe and loved. My mom loves me, and so does my sister, but Eli’s a little different. I guess he’s my woogie, my safety blanket. I want to be that for you tonight. Let me be your safety blanket. Show yourself. Come sit with me and tell me what happened and how we can make it better so the pain stops.”

It never stops.

She flickers to existence in front of me. She’s a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and brown eyes. She looks like Alesha, now that I’m staring at her. There’s no visible injury on her, but she fell and hit her head. She probably had a slow brain bleed that killed her.

“Are you Noelle?”

The room pulses again. I’m not sure if it’s a yes or a no.

“Noelle Blackburne?”

Yes.

Her voice is cracked and hollow, like it hasn’t been used in a long time.

“I spoke with Sabien earlier tonight. He’s here, right outside, if you want to see him.”

Here? My boy is here?

“Yes. He wanted to come and help you find some peace so you stop hurting people.”

Peace? The bitterness in her voice bleeds through. How can there ever be peace after what he has done?

“I know he cheated and he hurt you…”

She laughs, and some of the darkness creeps back into her voice. Hurt me? Nay, it is not I my darling husband has hurt, but our children.

“He did something to Alesha and Sabien?”

Nay, to my little ones. He murdered them in their sleep.

What?

I thought they had perished through illness or the sleeping death, but he killed them while they slept. All because they did not bear the mark or any magical ability. He wanted a pure bloodline. My babies…murdered by their own father. I hate him for what he’s done. Hate him to the depths of my soul.

Wow, okay. How to combat that?

“Ella? What’s going on?”

“Bring Sabien up. I think he should talk to her.”

“It’s his mother, then?”

“Yes, but hurry. She’s starting to fade back to the darkness in her heart.”

She’s moving through the room, but it’s like she’s seeing furniture that’s not there and is moving around it. Perhaps she’s locked in the past and that is what she’s seeing. Her agitation is getting worse and worse as she paces, muttering things I can’t make out.

“Noelle? How do you know your husband did that?”

Her head whips to me, and the snarl on her face instils the exact fear in me she meant it to.

I saw it. When I died, I saw it. He’d hidden it at the main house, and I saw what he wrote. How he murdered our children. He moved it later, before he allowed the children to return to our mountain retreat. But I saw the truth written by his own hand.

My dad sucks, but at least he never willingly tried to murder me or Cecily in our sleep.

“Mama?” Sabien calls through the door.

Her eyes zero in on the door.

“It’s your son, Sabien. He’s older now, not the ten-year-old you remember. He’s right outside the door and wants to talk to you.”

I carefully stand and move to the door. It’s not locked. Chances are, had I tried to escape earlier, it would have been locked and pissed her off worse than she is currently.

Stepping aside so he can enter, I swing the flashlight toward her. “Do you see her?”

“No.”

“That’s okay. She’s listening. Just tell her what you want her to know.”

“Is she so angry because of Papa’s mistress?”

“No. She’s angry about him murdering her children.”

His face pales. “She knows about that?”

I nod. “Yeah. She saw him write something down. It was hidden at the main house, and then he moved it before he allowed you and your sister to return here.”

“Aren’t ghosts locked to their place of death?”

“Not always,” Eli says, coming into the room.

“Noelle, this is Sabien,” I say before Eli can start a spiel on ghosts’ ability to move throughout the planes. “He’s older now, no longer a little boy.”

She moves closer, studying him. He looks like his father.

“And you look like your daughter.”

He’s really Sabien and not a trick?

“No, it’s not a trick. It’s him.”

“Non, ma mère, it is not a trick. It’s moi ton petit garçon, Sabien.”

French. They’re all from New Orleans, so of course they speak French. I don’t, but I recognize the language. I like foreign films.

She drifts closer, and with each step, her figure goes from ghostly to solid. My Sabien?

“Yeah, it’s your son. Let him see you. Please. He’s come here so many times trying to find you. Let him see you again.”

His gasp is all I need to hear. She’s not wearing her white gown. She’s wearing a beautiful emerald green gown that was in style a hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago. Her hair is done up in some kind of complicated style that makes my fingers hurt looking at it. This must be how she looked when she died. She’s beautiful.

“Ma mère.” He steps closer and reaches for her, but his hand goes through her.

“She’s still a ghost,” I remind him. “She’s a being of pure energy. You can’t touch her, but you can talk to her.”

Sabien, she whispers. Her voice has lost its raspy tone, and it’s now soft and lyrical. You look so grown.

“I am grown, Mama. So is Alesha.”

You are the only two of my babies who lived.

“What Papa and Grandfather did was an abomination unto their family. Alesha and I found the family tree that listed all the children he killed. We escaped him, and we’re happy now.”

Alesha is happy?

“She is. She has two beautiful children. Alexandria and Jason. Alex looks like me, and Jason is the spitting image of his father.”

She named her daughter after the man who murdered my children? Noelle seethes.

“He’s still her father, and she loves him. I know better than anyone what that feels like. It’s okay to love him and to hate him. It’s a war that lives within a child, and we all have to come to terms with being okay with it. You can’t blame her for loving her father.”

I love him as well, even though he was horrible. Even though he murdered our children. Does that make me a horrible person?

“No,” Sabien assures her. “It makes you human. It makes you the kind of person we try to mold Alex and Jason into. It makes you someone worth forgiving for all the terrible things you have caused.”

It’s her turn to go pale, or paler than she already is.

The things I have caused?

I step closer, prepared to scream for Selena if this goes badly. “You allowed your pain and anger to manifest itself in a blind, insane rage. You’ve spent the better part of a century or more causing people along this road to die or be injured.”

I would never…

“But you did.” I take her hands. For a reaper, she’s as real to us as Eli or Sabien. I can touch her whereas the others can’t. “You hurt countless people, and others died, Noelle. We came here to try to bring you to peace so the suffering stops on all sides.”

I hurt people? she asks, bewildered.

“You hurt me and Eli. We were in the vehicle you caused to go off the road. We almost died. My friend Jessie and her mom, you hurt them last night. It’s time to face what you’ve done and stop. You need to go on to peace and rest.”

“Please, ma mère, please, listen to Ella. I don’t want you to be stuck in this loop, constantly lashing out and causing others who did no wrong to hurt. That’s not who you are. Don’t let this anger warp you any longer. Please, ma mère, please, for the love of your children, please stop this madness.”

I do not wish to hurt anyone.

“Then don’t,” I tell her. “Let me help you. You died, Noelle. You’re not supposed to be here. Let me help you go to where you are supposed to be, to where your children who died are waiting for you.”

They’re waiting for me?

I nod. “Selena.”

She pops to existence beside me, causing us all to jump, even Noelle.

“Selena, this is Noelle Blackburne. Noelle, this is my friend, Selena. She can ferry you to the next life where your children are waiting for you.”

Noelle looks to Sabien, clearly torn between staying with him and seeing her other children. The ones she thought lost to her.

“It’s all right, ma mère. I am fine. Alesha and I are happy. It’s time for you to be happy too, to find peace. Allow Selena to take you to your children who do need you. Please.”

She smiles and lets go of my hands to try to hug her son, but she can’t.

“He can’t touch you. He doesn’t have ghost energy inside of him.”

She frowns. I want to hug my son.

“I know, but the best Christmas present you can give to me and Alesha is to move on and find your peace. Go with Selena.”

Selena holds out her hand. “Come, Noelle. Your children are waiting in the light. Just take my hand and I’ll lead you there.”

There’s a warmth at my back, and I know it’s the portal between planes that has opened even if I’m not strong enough yet to see it.

Noelle puts her hand in Selena’s. I love you, Sabien.

“I love you too, ma mère.”

Tell Alesha I love her.

“I will. Go now.”

She smiles and turns toward the light, popping out of existence with Selena.

That was so much easier than I thought it would be.

Sabien falls to his knees, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

As easy as it was, it was probably the hardest thing he’s ever done. He had his mother back. He could see her, talk to her, tell her he loved her. And then he lost her all over again.

“I’m sorry.” I lay my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“She’ll be at peace now. I have to be grateful for that, at least.”

“She is.”

I’m not so sure, but I don’t say a word about that. I’m told she’ll be judged and hopefully forgiven so she can spend the rest of eternity with the children she lost. I really need to sit down and have a talk with Selena about what happens with them when they reach the other side.

“Come on, Mr. Blackburne.” Eli pulls him to his feet. “We’d best get back before we all freeze to death. She’s no longer here and is at peace. You accomplished what you set out to do.”

He nods slowly. “I must speak with my sister.”

“Then let’s go home, and you can do that while you have a strong cup of Irish coffee. I’m sure Gramps has one waiting for you.”

He allows us to lead him out of the house, only looking back once before we get back on the snowmobiles. I can’t even imagine what he’s thinking.

I sense the cold before I see them. A dozen or more reapers have descended on the house. I’m assuming they’re there to help the trapped ghosts move on. They deserve to move on as well.

“You ready, Shortcake?”

“Yeah. I’m shocked, though.”

“About what?”

“We didn’t end up back in the hospital from all the injuries we normally get when dealing with dangerous ghosts.”

“Call it our own Christmas miracle.”

“That’s nice. Now, get me back to central heating before I become a frozen popsicle.”

“Sure thing.”

He starts the snowmobile, and we all head back toward the house. Laying my head on Eli’s back, I let myself relax and enjoy the Christmas lights of the houses we pass.

I suppose we did get a Christmas miracle and helped a woman find peace after centuries.

“Thank you, Rhea,” I whisper, not knowing if she can hear me or not, but hoping she can.

Now, back to face Mama Molly. No one’s hurt, so she can’t be too mad.

Right?

Nah, she’s still mad, and that’s not about to change, but if I bribe her with a Hallmark movie tomorrow, she’ll forgive me.

And that will be my personal Christmas miracle, so merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

About the Author

So who am I? Well, I'm the crazy girl with an imagination that never shuts up. I LOVE scary movies. My friends laugh at me when I scare myself watching them and tell me to stop watching them, but who doesn't love to get scared? I grew up in a small town nestled in the southern mountains of West Virginia where I spent days roaming around in the woods, climbing trees, and causing general mayhem. Nights I would stay up reading Nancy Drew by flashlight under the covers until my parents yelled at me to go to sleep.

Growing up in a small town, I learned a lot of values and morals, I also learned parents have spies everywhere and there's always someone to tell your mama you were seen kissing a particular boy on a particular day just a little too long. So when you get grounded, what is there left to do? Read! My Aunt Jo gave me my first real romance novel. It was a romance titled "Lord Margrave's Deception." I remember it fondly. But I also learned I had a deep and abiding love of mysteries and anything paranormal. As I grew up, I started to write just that and would entertain my friends with stories featuring them as main characters.

Now, I live in Huntersville, NC where I entertain my niece and nephew and watch the cats get teased by the birds and laugh myself silly when they swoop down and then dive back up just out of reach. The cats start yelling something fierce...lol.

I love books, I love writing books, and I love entertaining people with my silly stories.

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