A Midwinter Fantasy (12 page)

She didn’t wait for a response when she snapped her fingers. In a blink, Michael was suddenly fourteen years old again, standing on a street corner and staring. He’d been summoned from his home as if by a great bell, knocked to the ground by a great wind, and his heart exploded with new sensations. His eyes were full of ghosts. It was the first day of the Grand Work, and he was living it.

Living it, indeed. He was no longer watching himself, as he’d done in Athens; he was
in
this memory. He stared down at his hands and flexed them, felt the vigour of youth pounding in his veins. His consciousness was fully aware, though these events happened years long past. With a little giggle he ran full tilt until he reached the crest of Westminster Bridge. If time and memory were both flexible, perhaps there were ways of making things right.

She was waiting, young and spindly-legged, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Strands of her brown hair were caressed by the wind, and she glanced around nervously, clutching her skirts and shifting from foot to foot. She’d been the first to arrive, the first of them anxiously awaiting destiny.

“Hello. I’m Rebecca,” she said. She opened her mouth to say something else but stopped, staring intently at him. Something on his face had stilled her.

Michael took a step forward. He reached for her hand, and she gave it willingly.

“Hello, Rebecca, I’m Michael,” he heard his young voice say. But his old heart shaped new words, released the thunderbolt
of knowledge he felt but had once feared to utter. “And I will always love you.”

The young Rebecca gasped. She blushed furiously and smiled a welcoming smile.

History changed.

Released from time, from memory, from the magic of the past, or perhaps caught in some sweet mixture of the three, Vicar Michael Carroll stood at the back door of a building he did not recognize. He felt a new man. He wasn’t sure what he was suddenly doing on the steps of this lovely town house, or how he’d gotten there.

He looked around for Jane. She was nowhere to be seen, but his heart pounded with the same vigour he had just felt. He wasn’t sure if what he’d seen had truly happened, or if it had been a dream, but either way he yearned to find Rebecca, to walk up to her right now, again, a lifetime later. He would approach her with that same surety and change history again.

A sound on the street made him turn: a slowly approaching carriage. The curtain on the window was flung aside, the glass opened, and a snow-white face beamed an expression of joy up at him where he stood on the steps. She waved.

Mrs. Rychman’s eerie eyes were shaded from the winter glare by dark-tinted glasses, and she turned to someone behind her and uttered a sort of admonition. “I have to tell him something,” she insisted, and soon the door was flung open and a firm male voice barked for the driver to stop.

Before her husband could help her out of the carriage, Percy had lifted up her skirts, disembarked from the carriage and trotted up the stairs to Michael’s side. Professor Rychman
exited behind her, standing tall and imperious, his black hair, frock coat and carriage a stark contrast to the white of his wife and the snow on the street.

“Hullo, dear girl,” Michael said, squeezing her hand, “I’m not sure what has happened, but Jane told me you were at hand, so I’m sure I owe you some sort of—”

“The town house is unlocked,” Percy blurted over him. “Your key on the table. The headmistress’s key is in her office, with a letter from the academy board explaining the change in quarters. You
must
have a home, Vicar,” she added earnestly. “A fresh new start, with no memories but those you two now make. The spirits told me so; they insisted upon it. You must have a home free from the haunting of memories gone by, and you shall make new memories to inhabit
these
bricks. Spirits understand the need of such things: hearths and homes, it’s why they haunt them. There is very little more important.”

“Indeed,” Michael said, having never thought about such a detail. “Most sensible.”

“Merry Christmas!” Percy cried, throwing her arms around him. She released him, lifted her skirts and scurried back toward her husband, who awaited her with a small smile tugging at his mouth.

“But . . . where did this home come from? To whom do I owe . . . ?” He stopped short.

Percy waved her hand as if it didn’t matter.

“This building is the property of Athens Academy. How it was paid for is none of your concern,” Alexi said, his tone all business, though Michael knew there was warmth beneath. “As Percy said, the board voted to give the headmistress better lodging. Go on, Vicar, we’ve all got Christmas merrymaking to do. We’re hosting a New Year’s celebration at the Rychman estate, don’t you know. Do come with your fiancée.”

“My fiancée . . . ?” Michael registered the words, processed them and stepped back a pace. Then he grinned and nearly jumped in the air.

“Go on, she’ll be here any minute!” Percy squealed, and dragged Alexi back to the carriage. He gladly helped her up, and they started off.

Michael entered the front hall of the town house. There were spicy scents and warm, alluring lights. Ignoring the stairs that ascended, surely, to bedrooms and studies, he entered the main room to find it well furnished and decorated, with a blazing hearth.

“My God,” he murmured, staring at the painting above the mantel. Josephine was right: she was painting more beautifully than ever. Her distinct style was no longer limited to guardian angels, as required by the Grand Work, and now her subjects were free and entirely her own. Tumbling masses of sumptuous flowers, bursting with both colour and life, threatened to spill directly onto the mantel below.

He heard a hiss from the rearmost room—a kitchen, likely—from which warm and intoxicating odours flowed. Someone was mulling wine, a fine cabernet. “Go, go out the side. One of them is here!” hissed a voice with a French accent.

Michael rushed forward. He was in time. In the kitchen he found Josephine, who had prepared a feast that overflowed from tables and countertops. Lord Withersby was lighting candles, careful to keep his absurdly excessive mauve sleeves from catching fire.

“Hullo, friends.” Michael grinned.

Josephine and Elijah turned, sheepish. “Sorry, old chap,” Elijah murmured. “We wanted to have this all done and ready before you got here, but the spirits sure were quick about it, weren’t they?”

Michael didn’t know what to say.

Seeming to understand, Josephine took his hands. “Have you lived a whole life over? For us it’s only been a day. You must promise to tell us all about it!”

“Josie, it’s private,” Elijah scoffed. “If the spirits went rooting around in our pasts, do you think we’d want to share?”

Josephine raised an eyebrow, shocked at her fiancé’s unusual moment of discretion. “
C’est vrai
. I suppose for once you are right.”

“Listen,” Michael said, grabbing Elijah, “whom do I have to thank—?”

Elijah waved at him to be silent. “I’ve a message from the orphanage. Little Charlie’s health has turned a corner. He said an angel came and commended him for his help. You should have him over for a nice dinner, he said he’d like that—and ‘God bless us’ and all that nonsense.” Withersby grinned. Michael pressed his hands to his face in a prayer of thanksgiving.

Josephine removed her apron, showing herself in a far fancier gown than anyone should have been found cooking, and threw one last handful of cinnamon sticks into the wine.
“Finis.”
She turned to Elijah.
“Allons-y, ma chere.”
She turned to Michael.
“Joyeux Noelle!”
Kissing him on both cheeks, she darted into the main hall and out the front door.

Elijah plucked a piece of paper from his vest pocket and pressed it into Michael’s hands. “Get done with this quickly and stop us all from living in sin. I love you!” He kissed Michael’s forehead and darted out the door.

Michael opened the paper. Stunned by his good fortune and his even better friends, he entered the sitting room and sat before the hearth, tears of joy in his eyes. While The Guard couldn’t be more different as individuals, Michael doubted there’d ever been such care between other humans.
He held a certificate for two rings, courtesy of Lord Withersby’s favourite jeweler.

He felt as though his heart might burst from the magnitude of his blessings. It was hard to imagine that just yesterday he’d been feeling that his world was collapsing, that he’d lost everything. His heart was as full as the first day he joined The Guard. He’d lost nothing. He had everything yet to gain.

Heedless of the falling snow, flakes melting immediately against her flushed cheeks, Rebecca was down the block before she knew it, at the address specified in the letter. She went to turn the key in the lock and found it already open. The interior was lit. It smelled like heaven.

She did not take the stairs to the upper landings because a crackling warmth drew her toward the parlour. Inside sat a dapper man upon a divan, his hair more kempt than Rebecca was ever used to seeing, and his oceanic blue eyes were wide and brimming with promise. In what surely must be firelight, it seemed as though a great aura hung about him, as if he were channeling an angel. Or perhaps they were illuminating him for her. Lighting the way.

Michael Carroll. This was the man she’d been meant to love all along, the dear friend whom she
had
loved all along. And now she understood the truth. He was her past, her present, her . . .

“My Christmas yet to come,” she murmured from the doorway.

Michael’s eyes snapped up to behold her, and his face, somehow joyous even without expression, shone like a sun when he bestowed upon her his magnificent smile. The light was, in fact, his own. Jumping to his feet, he rushed to the threshold and took her hands. From there he escorted her into the parlour, where surely a hundred candles were lit. The pungent
smell of spice wafted from a back kitchen. The walls were bare save for the most gorgeous canvas she’d ever seen: Josephine’s rich style, uninhibited, the voluptuous beauty of flowers that had Rebecca feeling as fresh and untouched as those blooms.

“Welcome home, Headmistress,” Michael murmured, drawing close. He lifted a key. “I assume you’ve been given one, too. It would seem this is our home, Rebecca. If you’ll—”

She silenced him with a kiss.

It was a soft but deepening kiss, one that began as a mere taste and appreciation of the press of lips but progressed toward a hunger unquenchable, a release of tension, a discarding of years gone by, a desperate need to savour the present and a promise of what was to come.

She pulled back. Michael gasped and touched his lip. “Am I dreaming?”

Rebecca chuckled and shook her head. “No. But . . . are you all right?” she asked, wondering if he felt as oddly drained yet vibrant as she. “Did the spirits put you through quite the tasks?”

“Oh, indeed. I’d much to learn. To trust, mostly. I’ve been so scared. I’d lost heart, though that seems impossible. I feared that in losing our Grand Work I’d lost what little I had to give you.”

Rebecca placed her hand on his cheek. “You’ve the greatest heart of any man who ever lived, with or without the power of The Guard. I know this. I truly
know
this. I am new. I am reborn, like the phoenix, our incarnate patron. Now, please, please, show me how to love like you. Teach me, for the headmistress is ready to learn—and to love you in return, from now until the end of our days, if you will have it so.”

The joy upon Michael’s face outshone the fire in the hearth. “Amen!” he cried.

Taking her in his arms, he kissed her reverently. Achingly slowly, he kissed her in a progression of passion, demonstrating all the courses of his epic emotions, all he was capable of feeling. In caresses and presses and torturous promises of expanding passion he showed her who he was, and who they would yet become.

Their clasping embrace sent them to the divan, their limbs wrapping tightly, no caress or gasp or devouring kiss enough to express the pent-up passion of twenty unrequited years. Yet there were no regrets. Only possibility.

Soft carols played on church bells nearby, the bells of Michael’s parish, songs promising a child was to be born who would bring love to the world. For two lovers reborn in a second chance, it seemed oddly fitting.

As their carriage traveled away from the town house of the soon-to-be Carrolls, Percy removed her glasses and gazed at her husband. The force of her dramatic, ice blue eyes was mesmerizing as ever. “Oh, Alexi. Thank you for postponing our proper honeymoon. Won’t it be glorious to attend the two weddings of our most beloved friends? Isn’t it wondrous how the world is full of ghosts and angels, muses and magic?”

He placed an arm around her. “Tell me, Percy. How, if spirits can do all this to humans . . . how did we not know it possible? How could The Guard, arbiters of ghosts in this great city, not be privy to these cataclysmic shifts spirits can wreak?”

“Dickens knew about them,” Percy teased. “Hardly claptrap.”

Alexi opened his mouth to retort but she continued.
“Because,
Alexi, what happened here was done with love. Your job was to halt malevolence from penetrating this world, not goodness, these sorts of miracles weren’t in your purview. But love conquers all, especially in this season. My dear,” she breathed, “there is so much good in this world, and in the next world, and even in the world between. Such incredible opportunities! Jane took hers to become an angel, and now the world of the Great Beyond will open to her. Perhaps that’s the difference between spirits and angels; it’s in the
becoming.”

Alexi’s furrowed brow eased, dazzled. “You are one of the angels of
this
world,” he murmured.

Percy blushed, nuzzled against him and denied it.

The carriage jostled on. Snow again began to fall on the cobblestones, kissing London crystalline pure, dusting its sooty eaves with the white of renewal. The city was reborn, too. There
were
angels on the streets, or those who might be angels. There were angels in the hearts of all those who worked wonders, in all who do, and in all who will.