A Midwinter Fantasy (2 page)

The scene paused in its inexorable march of a now-past event, and the voyeur spirits in the Liminal turned to one another.

“What is to be done of it?” the younger female asked in her London accent, staring at the subject before her with both pity and recognition.

“And what stands between them?” said the little boy, in urchin’s clothes, his voice a Scots brogue.

“They stand between themselves. And they stand grieving,” the Irishwoman’s spirit replied. “They need a good
shaking, the both of them. Twenty years of nonsense, which shall end with us. If we do all we can, if we do what I wish, we’ll end up with
this
.” She murmured a brief Catholic prayer for intercession, all she could think to offer, and opened her hands in supplication. The Liminal responded, recognizing the tongues of all faiths. The great scene shifted.

The Liminal clock turned, the numbers trembling, the long hands quivering, as this outcome was not certain. But this possible future scene revealed a warm hearth and home, a blazing fire backlighting two silhouetted forms bending close as only lovers would. The trio of spirits gave sighs of appreciation, felt a gruesome weight of melancholy lifted.

The Liminal felt the change in their hearts, and the corners of its proscenium reacted; sparkling, vibrant, humming. The relieving of melancholy wielded great power. So, conversely, did the creation of it.

“But it’s dangerous, the tasks they must be taken through,” the little boy protested, knowing her intent. He shifted his feet on the glassy stone of the Liminal. “We could lose them to time and shadow. We could lose
ourselves
, be trapped forever if we’re not careful. I do love hangin’ from the Athens chandelier, but a nice rest might make a lovely Christmas present . . .” The loving scene before the fire faded to darkness with a slow hiss.

The second female nodded. “Even if it weren’t nigh impossible . . . it’s dangerous to weave souls through memories and time. Dark moments can rewrite themselves even darker. To take them through time, to risk changes? To change only the necessary moments, of their particular history, for the correct outcome? And, doing so with members of
The Guard?
Why, doesn’t that make it even more perilous? Especially considering
him
.”

The Irishwoman pursed her lips, undeterred. “True, we
only vanquished Darkness in form, not in spirit. We broke the cycle of the vendetta, but human misery will build him again. If we bring the headmistress into his world and she cannot overcome the poison inside her, if she’s captured by the shadows, we’ll have lost. I’ll have died for nothing, The Guard toiled for nothing and the darkness that presses in around us even now will win her. But I’m willing to risk another sacrifice, to threaten my own eternal rest at the side of my beloved. For I believe in many things, but I believe most heartily in Rebecca and Michael.”

“You’ll dare bring them here?” asked the young woman, in awe. “And for you, what about your love, what will Aodhan—?”

“I assure you we’ve been up against far worse,” said the Irishwoman. “I warred against the worst of the Whisper-world, remember! I tell you. I’ll make a sacrifice.” She called to the Liminal, announcing herself like a prophet. “Liminal edge, you tell those who beg your aid that you’ll not change the course of lives without barter. But be clear I make my deal with you, not the devil, and I expect generous justice. Thus I place my soul on the line. I agree to remain trapped here in this uncomfortable between, unable to appear to my beloved friends and unable to gain the Great Beyond at my love’s side until our two charges make the first honest step toward learning the lessons we must teach.”

The Liminal stage had gone dark, a wall of black before them, the occasional tendril of Whisper-world mist curling across its surface.

“How . . . does one make a . . . deal?” the little boy murmured, breathless.

“Aodhan told me. My love traveled between worlds for ages and learned many things.” The Irishwoman did not hesitate. She pressed her palms against the Liminal wall and hissed in
pain, as if there were needles in that barrier. A deep black fluid oozed from her palms, phantom blood, sipping a bit of her life force before her wounds closed, her compact sealed. The Liminal sparked across its dark threshold like a fork of lightning, the air was charged and the portal was open. Clearly it was ready to begin.

She turned to her fellows with hope upon her grey face. “Sometimes a good haunting is just what a soul needs, even the most heroic. And we shall surely give them that. Come, we’ve not long before Christmas. It is the time of miracles.”

“And the Liminal well knows it,” said the boy, peering warily at the portal of infinite possibility. The edges of the frame again sparked, as if in assent.

The Irishwoman nodded. “Go, let us begin. Call upon them, the both of you. I daresay
one
of them will be thrilled to see you.”

They all three closed their eyes in concentration.

The Liminal clock hands and numbers shifted to the hour and date concurrent with the mortal present, just days beyond the memory they had viewed. A new scene was born, and the living portrait now displayed a modest apartment filled with the same lively Guard characters, all save the headmistress and she who was lost.

The little boy spirit was the first to descend through the now-porous Liminal membrane, to pass through that proscenium portal and into the room. Immediately inside, there was great tumult regarding him.

The spirit of the Irishwoman chuckled at this, her greyscale eyes filling with fond tears. The other spirit placed a hand upon her shoulder, but the Irishwoman shrugged it off. “Go on, Miss Peterson.” She gestured her forward, grinning. “I trust that I will eventually be able to follow you.” Her voice was hopeful but her mood anxious.

As Ms. Peterson descended, the Irishwoman remained in the Liminal, watching the familiar, tumultuous melee of spectral and human interaction. “I’ll forever miss that.
You
,” she murmured to the friends who could not see her.

After a moment, she moved into the thicker shadows. There she drew back a drape on another picture made manifest by the powers of the Liminal edge, a further masterwork in the museum of the cosmos, and murmured, “On a separate stage, the curtain now rises on Headmistress Thompson. Alone.”

Indeed, just beyond sat Ms. Thompson, isolated in her academy apartments, her knees folded awkwardly upon bedclothes that showed no signs of having been slept in. Usually a model of efficiency, hard work and propriety, the headmistress was uncharacteristically undone.

The Irishwoman clucked her tongue. “Rebecca. Why aren’t you with our friends? We scored a victory against Darkness. All of us. Why can’t you make use of it?”

The headmistress’s eyes were red with tears, her blouse askew. A white cat lay curled at her feet, and her thin hand stroked it almost mechanically, as if she dared not stop.

“I’ve no regrets, Rebecca. Not a single one,” the voyeur spirit murmured. “It’s time you felt the same.” She turned back to the great stage opposite, inside of which her friends had resettled. Her two ghostly companions had disappeared and so she addressed the former Guard, those she considered family. “It’s time
all
of you felt the same.”

In the living painting that showcased her cohorts, the sturdy man who had confessed his heart in the earlier scene still sported distinguished age lines, unruly salt-and-pepper hair and clergyman’s clothes. His blue eyes were wide and sparkling with an incomparable quality of compassion. But somewhere deep behind those oceanic orbs, somewhere deep
behind the wide and contagious smile and the armour of good humour, lay the same private and keening pain that had just been on display.

“Twenty years of nonsense, Michael Carroll. Upon my dead body, I swear to you, you’ll have a very merry Christmas if it’s the last thing I do.”

Vicar Michael Carroll turned the ladle in his pot of mulled wine and let the scented steam rise to his nostrils, unlocking emotion, memory and all those forces that such smells do around the Christmas holiday. He glanced out the window of the kitchen in his small Bloomsbury flat, which looked unflatteringly down upon an alley, and was pleased to witness a solitary flake of snow brush the thick, uneven glass before vanishing. It would be the first of many firsts this season, if the fates allowed.

Drawing himself a heaping tankard of Josephine’s favourite cabernet, procured from the stores of her café and heated with bobbing chunks of cinnamon, fruit and cloves, he moved into his small dining room. The corners of the chamber were plastered at uneven angles, having settled awkwardly at the beginning of the century when the building was new. The window here only gave half a view of the avenue beyond, but he could see lamplighters plying their trade and nearing his street. It was not yet dark, and a purple sky reigned over parapets and smokestacks that grew ever higher and higher, the churning wheels of industry cranking them upward to challenge twilight’s celestial throne.

He sat at a rough-hewn wooden table worn smooth by use, by company and the press of his own hands. Sliding his palms forward onto it, he eased into his chair, bracing himself
and his heart, connecting with something solid and simple. The odd powers that had coursed through his body had once made his fingers twitch. Those powers were no more. Nonetheless, holding his palms firmly down, rooting himself to the table and to humanity, was one of his usual exercises. It brought him peace.

Michael, unlike his five compatriots in The Guard who had until very recently been charged with the Grand Work, had never cursed it. Theirs was a strenuous and at times lonely responsibility—though it didn’t have to be—but it was ultimately rewarding. The Guard had been the law of the land, spectrally speaking. Though they’d left benign spirits well enough alone, each of their coterie had been granted a specific, beautiful power to arraign evil spirits and keep them from harassing the unwitting mortal populace. The Guard had controlled traffic of the unfettered and malignant dead all throughout London for twenty some years. They’d done the world a great supernatural deal of what Michael would consider Christian charity.

But he had to admit that his role in the Grand Work had held some irony. Literally the Heart of the group, he could open locked doors, touch a breastbone and flood someone’s veins with joy, change the emotional contents of a room, shifting energy and intent like metals processed by alchemy. And yet he’d never gained happiness of his own, or the heart of the woman he’d loved for those twenty some years.

In the beginning they’d been simple teenaged youths, arraigned by a goddesslike force and called to duty. They’d been universally awkward and unlikely companions from disparate backgrounds and classes; they’d suspected little of their lives ahead. Michael hadn’t known
anything
when he began seeing ghosts, when he began learning how his respective
gift augmented their group. He hadn’t known how long it would take for their prophesied seventh member to join their ranks—or that one of their beloved number would fall in recent battle. What he did know was that, from the very first moment he laid eyes on her, he loved the young and spindly brunette who would be their second in command. He’d loved Rebecca Thompson since Westminster Bridge in the summer of 1867.

She, in turn, likely from that very same moment, had loved the young man who would become their leader. Alexi. The battle with Darkness and the Whisper-world, in retrospect, seemed the easy part.

Michael pressed his hands harder against the table, slid them farther from his body, stretching his taut muscles and wrestling with his nerves like Jacob did the angel. He’d not seen Rebecca since they laid Jane in the tomb three days prior; she had gone to her apartments and locked herself in. She blamed herself, he could tell, wished God had taken her instead. Michael thought the sentiment might kill him. Nothing felt familiar. He’d lost his powers, Jane, and now he was losing Rebecca. His heart, so full of joy and love, was suffering a tumbling withdrawal from its preternaturally augmented height. It was a terrifying, dizzying fall.

“Pull yourself together, man,” he murmured. “It’s nearly Christmas.”

His front door burst open, making him jump and splash warm wine onto his hand. Pursing his lips, knowing just who it was without even a glance, he finally looked up to behold the stern and striking figure upon his threshold. All in black stood his dear friend and unintentional rival, Alexi Rychman, former leader of the London Guard.

“Dear God, Professor. I truly thought, now that the weight of the known world is no longer entirely on your shoulders,
you might at least allow yourself the more socially preferred custom of knocking upon a friend’s door before entering.”

“Old habits,” Alexi intoned, his voice rich, low and commanding. It would always be thus, even though he had no group to lead any longer.

Behind Alexi, a moonbeam of a young woman stood with an apologetic look on her face. Michael grinned and forgot his irritation. “Ah, well, Mrs. Rychman . . . with you at his side, all debts are erased.”

Alexi turned proudly to his entering bride. She was certainly the youth among them, Alexi not quite twice her age, but then again, where ancient prophecies were concerned, when gods were fiddling with mortal lives and taking their bodies as their own, age hardly mattered. Her fine taffeta skirts, in her favourite shade of rich blue, brushed the coarse wood of the door and rustled as she closed it.

She received Michael’s warm expression with a radiant smile that transformed her death white face into a ray of magical starlight. There was nothing about her that was ordinary. The whole of Mrs. Persephone Rychman remained white as a spectre, even the hair piled atop her head in an elegant coif. But the light here was diffuse enough that she did not have to wear the dark blue tinted glasses that shielded her eerie, breathtaking, ice blue eyes from any harshness.

“My husband never allows me to get to a door first, Vicar Carroll, otherwise I might abate his most startling tradition,” she said sweetly.