The Tidings - [Ghost Huntress 0.5 - A Christmas Novella] (2 page)

School, Patrick’s vacay, the wedding, and Kaitlin’s drama aside… there’s the ultimate in final straw department. One of those last drops of trouble that cause the emotional liquids to spill over. The type of thing that breaks the camel’s back and depresses an already tense and terse teenager: I had longed to have some holiday bonding time with my newly-discovered grandparents, Anna and John Faulkner. They’re the parents of my deceased birth mother, Emily, and I only just found them last summer when I was in Italy. I wanted nothing more than to have them with me on Christmas morning as we all awakened to my mother’s breakfast smorgasbord of frittata, home fries, fresh baked bread, and, yes, figgy pudding. A family tradition that dates back in the Moorehead household to before I was even born.

Of course, now, that’s all out the window because my grandparents got a “good deal” they “couldn’t pass up” and opted to take a seniors cruise throughout the Mediterranean instead of flying from Italy to the states to be with me.

Seriously… bah freakin’ humbug!

Why wouldn’t I want to cancel Christmas?

I honestly just want to go to bed Christmas Eve and wake up the Monday after New Year’s, ready for whatever academic challenges the next school semester holds for me.

Another sigh escapes from me, bouncing off the walls of Loreen’s now empty shop. Other than requests for readings and the occasional candle purchases, our foot traffic has been nil this holiday shopping season. The folks of Radisson are off in Atlanta spending their hard-earned money on trinkets and presents their relatives likely won’t appreciate. I know I don’t care what I get for Christmas this year.

So what?

Who cares?

What’s the point?

I nab my bag, turn off the heat, the lights, and the annoying Muzak, and lock up the shop. Outside, a whipping chill surrounds me with tickling fingers of annoyance. Not cold enough for a good, strong, blast of snow to blanket the city, but not warm enough that I can go without tucking my North Face jacket tightly under my chin. The bright, white, decorative lights wrapped around the street lamps spring to life and fill the Square in a holiday glow. Emerald greenery with red bows and finely crafted wreaths hang from nearly every business door, the evergreen scent wafting in the air with each gust of December wind. In the center of the Square, a full nativity scene in a small, handcrafted stable is showcased with a huge orangey spotlight on the Baby Jesus. Too bad one of the wise men has fallen over with his face in the hay, totally ruining the effect.

The ginormous gifted tannenbaum from Radisson’s sister city, Radisson, Saskatchewan, Canada, stands tall in front of City Hall where my dad works. Oversized silver and gold ornaments sway in the night breeze. I wish it all meant something to me. I wish it had an effect on me. I wish it mattered.

Don’t get me wrong. Typically, I adore everything December. I am, after all, a Capricorn myself, born on the twenty-second of the month. I’m eighteen now. An adult. Able to cast a vote in an election, go to war, and move out on my own. Not that I want to do the latter two. As I trudge along the sidewalk headed for home, I recollect days gone by. A different life I once led: I thrived in my former Chicago existence, frolicking in the thick, wet snow, shopping for hours up and down the Miracle Mile, and peering at the window displays on State Street with my nose pressed against the glass staring wide-eyed at the shiny, sparkling ornaments and festive decorations.

Now look at me. I’m not the same Kendall I was then.

I’m changed.

Sure, I’m older, but I’ve had a lot of shit happen. I’m the poster child for it. A new town, a new school, a psychic awakening, a near-death experience, finding out I’m adopted, boys coming in and out of my life, and now this. This squeezing, wrenching, gasping, scraping, clutching—okay, I took that from Dickens—at my heart, tugging me in directions I didn’t know I was headed in. The harshness of my recent experiences—dealing with the dead, helping them pass into the light, or facing down malevolent and belligerent spirits who mean harm to me and my friends—well, it toughens up a person. It gives you a hard edge you didn’t otherwise have before, a tight grip around your soul that sucks the meaning of everything out of the corners of your brain.

Even though Radisson isn’t freezing, I am icy cold on the inside suddenly. Resentful and offended. Disappointed and disjointed. The idea of the familial warmth of Christmas morning does nothing to thaw the ice-age thickness of bitterness within me. Neither does the glory of a worshipful church pageant or the impending wedded bliss of my good friends.

Fifteen minutes later, I burst through the back door of our house. My three cats, Buckley, Eleanor, and Natalie, scatter away in surprise as I barrel past their food bowls. I toss my bag and purse on the kitchen table and move to the counter to seek something warm and caffeinated.

“Kendall? Is that you?” my mom calls out.

“Yes, ma’am.” I grab a mug, fill it with water from the Brita, and slide it into the microwave to heat for two minutes.

“I’m so glad you’re home,” she says from the front stairwell.

I smile at the thought of Mom missing me even though I’ve just been away for the last day of school and working at Loreen’s store. The microwave beeps out and I add a tea bag to the water to steep—something I learned to appreciate during my time in London over the summer.

Mom’s footsteps sound out overhead and I hear her shuffle down the steps. My annoyance at the world ebbs for a mere sec as I anticipate the loving embrace she’s surely going to wrap me in when she appears next to me here in the kitchen. And boy, could I ever use one of my mom’s hugs.

It doesn’t happen, though, as she stops in front of me with a grimace on her face. “You’ve got to help me, Kendall.”

So much for my hug. “Umm, okay. What’s wrong?”

“Kaitlin tore the hem of her angel gown when she was trying it on earlier. I told her not to wear her soccer shoes, but she stubbornly refused. Look at this mess those cleats caused.” Mom holds up the shimmery white and silver fabric with the hem dangling off the left side in a gnarled way. “I’ve
got
to run out to JoAnn’s for more fabric to finish the gossamer wings in time for tomorrow night’s service. You simply have to stitch this up, please.”

“Me?” I ask incredulously. “Why me?”

Mom’s face tightens. “Please, Kendall. Don’t give me any lip. This is important to your sister.”

Yet no one cares about what’s important to me. I hang my head in defeat.

Disappointment coats me. Not only from the lack of hugging, but the somewhat Cinderella-esque feeling of only being needed to do someone else’s dirty work. That’s what these past few weeks have been all about, though. School first. Kaitlin’s spotlight. Patrick’s dive trip. My grandparents’ cruise. Loreen and Mass’s wedding.

Where do
I
fit into all of this?

I snatch the garment out of Mom’s hand and take the Tupperware container that has all of her sewing accoutrements. Mom slides her purse up onto her shoulder and disappears through the back door.

“Stupid Kaitlin.” Brat extraordinaire. Not even my
real
sister. But Mom and Dad’s
real
daughter. Immediately, I tamp down the heartburn of guilt over the thought. Mom and Dad have never treated me differently or shown favoritism… at least not until now. I guess the brat deservers some attention after all the stupidity I’ve been dealing with.

I plop down in the arm chair in the corner of the kitchen and feel my bottom lip protrude into a downright pout. Even though I hear the heater kick on, nothing can warm me right now. I’ve moved beyond the winter chill. I’ve bought property in Bitterville where I’m pelted with the cold reality that this Christmas officially sucks.

No one cares about me, my wants, my needs, my desires. Not that I’m some narcissistic, needy person like Courtney Langdon at school. However, no one has stopped for one second to ask me how I am or what I’m up to. No one’s really thought to focus on how stressed out I am or how I can’t sleep through the night lately.

Just then, Buckley chases Eleanor through the kitchen playfully and even
they
don’t stop to pay any mind to me. “Don’t act like I’m the one who fills your magical unending Iams food dishes daily!”

They continue along in their play. I continue to linger in my angst.

The wind rattles the kitchen window pane and I hear the pine needles scrape against the glass. I stab the thread through the eye of the needle and roll the end of the strand into a tiny knot. Kaitlin should be doing this herself. Why should I have to be responsible to help out all because I’m the oldest and happen to have taken an embroidery class three years ago?

I plunge the needle into the fabric and straight into my index finger.

“Crap!”

A scarlet ooze of blood clouds out of my skin.

And just like that, no good deed goes unpunished.

See what I mean? Bah-freaking-humbug.

S
TANZA 2:
A
C
HEERLEADER’S
G
HOST

I rummage through the junk drawer in the kitchen to try and find a Band-Aid from this century.

“Stupid Kaitlin,” I mutter again, sucking the fresh blood off my finger.

As I roll the bandage around the reddened pin prick, I muse on how I ought to be happy in a million ways, like the song says. I usually adore Christmas, especially Christmas Eve. It’s just that everything is so…
stupid
right now. Sure, we’ve got this massive evergreen in the living room decorated to the hilt with all of the ornaments Kaitlin and I handmade over the years—from pathetic macaroni, yarn, and glue art, to more sophisticated painted clay shapes—but where’s the snow? Where are the mittens, scarves, and boots? There’s no hill covered in ice to slide down. No frozen-over lake to skate on. Instead, Mom has a few logs burning in the fireplace to try and institute a genuine holiday experience. I shake my head at the ridiculousness of it.

As I sit back and return to stitching Kaitlin’s dress, the door of the house bursts open. Buckley lets out a loud mewl and I hear the human mimicking of the kitty language.

“A merry Christmas, Kendall! God save you!” cries out my best friend, Celia Nichols.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” I say in my best Scrooge voice.

Celia twirls—yes, she twirls—into the kitchen so quickly at me, I barely have the chance to prepare for the over-the-shoulder hug she layers on me.

“A merry Christmas eve-eve, Kendall,” she corrects.

“Seriously. Bah humbug.”

She harrumphs at me. “You took Mr. Rorek’s Dickens assignment too literal, K. School’s out, we’ve got two weeks of vacay, and life is good.”

I slice my eyes up at her and glare. “For you, maybe.”

“Oh, you don’t mean that.”

Mid-stitch, I say, “Yeah, I do. Why are you so frickin’ merry?”

Celia pushes her black hair behind her ears and smiles at me. Not just a normal run-of-the-mill-happy grin. No, it’s one of those movie star, up-on-the-silver-screen type of glints that tells me she’s got something to share.

“What?”

Like a giddy girl, she says, “Jason gave me my Christmas present early.”

A weak smile crosses my face. Not because Celia’s now dating my ex, Jason Tillson, but because she’s so ridonkulously in love and it shows. “That’s great,” I force out. “What’d he get you?”

She pushes up the sleeve of her black sweater to reveal a pretty substantial piece of arm jewelry. “It’s the Pandora World Travelers bracelet.”

I nearly gag on my intake of breath. “Holy crap, Celia! That’s like an eight hundred dollar bracelet!”

Her eyes widen and she nods. “I know. I totally freaked when I opened the box. But Jason told me his mother got it from Delta’s lost and found. She discovered it on the floor in first class after one of her flights from New York to Atlanta. She did the whole turn into the proper authorities and such and waited like three months. When no one claimed it, she got to keep it. Jason thought it would be the perfect gift for me since it’s got a London bus, the Eiffel Tower, an airplane, and the Roman Colosseum—all things that are memories of our European trip together.”

I finger the charms – one with a camera, a peace sign, and Big Ben – remembering our summer journey. A trip that turned Celia and Jason into a couple. The same voyage that helped me finally discover my grandparents.

“If you weren’t already the richest girl in Radisson, Celia, you would be with this piece of silver,” I say, and force a smile.

“Don’t be mad,” she says. “It was dumb luck, honestly. I’m sure Patrick has something incredible for you.”

I wave her away with my hand and keep sewing. “I can’t think about that,” I tell her. “He’s got other things on agenda. He left already on his trip to Belize with his dad.” Anger and frustration bubble under my skin. “Things have been so tight for him and his dad,” I say. “I can’t believe they’re spending so much money going on a diving trip. He should have his head examined.”

Celia’s glee fades into a frown. “He didn’t give you a present before he left?”

I shake my head.

She reaches out and pats my sewing hand. “I’m sure he’ll bring you something wicked cool from Belize. It’s known for its, umm, you know… Belize stuff.”

I can’t help but laugh at her attempt to cheer me up.

“So, my parents are having this big blow out dinner on Boxing Day,” Celia tells me. “You know, instead of tossing out the leftovers and such, they’re pulling out the full, traditional, English stops and opening the house up to everyone in town to come over for a big after Christmas party.”

“That sounds like fun,” I say, knowing I don’t want any part of it. By the twenty-sixth, I’ll have fulfilled my sisterly duties to Kaitlin and her starring pageantry. My daughterly obligation helping out on Christmas day, and my maid of honor role to Loreen as she stand at the altar with Father Mass will be finished, as well. I don’t care about after Christmas sales, bowl games, or parades. I plan on cowering under the covers with my ereader and music, barricading the outside world away from me.