Uncollected Blood (4 page)

“All except the milk for Santa. Ran out this morning.”

She accepted the apple cider and Paul poured himself a glass as well.

He decided to make her feel a little more comfortable by choosing to sit down on his recliner and give her the option of the couch. She took it and draped her coat on the armrest. The sweater concealed her assets, but Paul was quite pleased with his ability to remember what she’d looked like, especially after so many drinks that night. She really was worth dreaming about.

“Mmm.” She took a big sip. “That’s good.”

“I know, you have to wonder why so many people get so depressed around Christmas. I love everything about Christmas.”

“Yeah?” She challenged him. “You headed home to your parents?”

“No, they’re vacationing down in Ocracoke. First Christmas we’re not altogether, my brother Nathan and I are headed to Tinker Cliffs, figured we’d have the whole place to ourselves, plus they are supposed to have snow. I really wanted a White Christmas.”

“So you can see their last footprints.”

“Huh?” Was Paul’s initial reaction and then he started to think she meant deer. “Yeah I even saw a bear up there back in August.”

“Oh…” Melinda had not meant animal tracks, and the way she said ‘oh’ and withdrew into the couch surprised Paul. He realized he missed something.

“What?”

“You know.” There was an awkward tension in the room and Paul now shot a friendly glance towards the shadow in the bedroom as if to make an aside to his audience, begging them if they knew what he had missed.

“Sorry, footprints?”

“Of the dead, it’s their last night on Earth, before they cross over. Haven’t you ever heard that before? That’s where people wanting White Christmases comes from.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“So you can see that your loved one crossed over.”

“Nope, new to me.”

She smiled at her apple cider and tucked her lips in on one side before she looked up and said, “I’m weird. I know things like that.”

“I’m intrigued tell me more,” Paul said, hoping to make her feel a bit more comfortable and also to gauge her crazy-stock before he committed to anything a bit more serious.
It’s always the shy pretty ones
, he thought.

“I don’t know how old it is, but I think it dates back to before Christmas was what we celebrate as Christmas.”

“Pagan holiday.”

“No. I think it was even before that.  My grandmother says there are all kinds of rules man has forgotten, things we used to do, and things we used to know. People rebel, out with the old, they want the new, and then they find there is something missing in their life, but only if they knew they’d realize it was stuff they just forgot. People don’t like to die. They are very sad when they are dead. They stick around on Earth, wandering, watching, hoping things get settled, coming to terms with death,” she sighed “Everyone always gets so depressed around Christmas, it’s because all that pain is finally gathering, all the sorrow of the dead souls has gathered next to their love ones, knowing they will never see them again. When the clock strikes midnight they will be gone for good. Some don’t even know.”

Paul couldn’t find the crack in her sincerity. He watched her eyes look past the walls of his apartment as she continued,

“It is actually where the idea of presents on Christmas morning came from, not from Santa Claus. They say the dead would leave presents for their loved ones to remember them by on Christmas morning, soon it was tradition to give a gift to a person whose loved one died that year. Somehow the true meaning of Christmas evolved into shopping and red and green.  Everyone gets a present, naughty and nice. But the White Christmas they used to want and it wasn’t even called Christmas it was called something else that I can’t quite pronounce.  But people would want it to snow so they could see that trail. So they could believe. I always really liked that.”

“Yeah,” Paul finally said, he had never heard anything like that before. He thought he knew as much as required about the holiday, he’d seen A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph, the Miracle on 34
th
Street, and A Christmas Story. “So would people be less sad if we all knew why we were feeling sad?”

“I think it makes it easier to deal with, that you know there are these souls hanging around that don’t understand what is really about to happen. I think if I know, if I’m prepared, when I die I won’t have to cause so much sadness. I’ll leave a present.” She smiled playfully.

“I like presents.” Paul felt stupid after saying it. Their conversation was deeper than that, and she also impressed him. There was something very attractive about the idea of loved ones having time before they had to cross over. “Have you lost anyone recently?”

She nodded and sipped. “You?”

“No,” he said.

“That’s probably best, it’s a long walk for a soul to Botetourt County from Richmond.”

“You know where Tinker Cliffs is!”

“I grew up in Roanoke. I know all about the Murder Hole.” She smiled and finished her cider.

Paul stood up and offered her more.  He finished the gallon jug, filling up her glass.

“Oh you can…” She started to offer him the last bit of cider.

“Nonsense, I like you,” he said and the jug was empty.

“So you’re saying I can come into your apartment and take what I want?”

Paul smiled back at her playfulness. He stopped before sitting back down in his recliner. He thought he missed the moment to sit down next to her. She sighed and rolled her long dark hair back behind an ear.
He must have
.

The floor creaked. Melinda jerked her head towards the bedroom. Paul’s gaze followed.

“It does that sometimes,” he told her, “I think it’s the heater getting ready to kick on.”  Her gaze strayed deep into the bedroom.  Paul tried to remember if he had left any boxers lying out. But something didn’t feel right, he thought about the shadow. He turned to make sure it was still, there, of course it was going to be there, the light was still hitting it from the living room and hallway exactly as before. Only the shadow was not there.

Paul didn’t understand. It had been there a moment ago. But now his room did feel empty, as if something had left it. But he knew no one could be there, his mind had to be playing tricks on him. He checked on Melinda and still her eyes held steady into the dark bedroom, with only the light illuminating the floor and the far wall, the far wall that should’ve had the shadow of a person sitting, waiting.

“So these souls, like say you died today or yesterday, you only get a day to settle your things and move on? Kinda seems cheap.”

“I think time for a soul isn’t the same as our time,” she said, her eyes never budging.
Was she trying to creep him out?

Change the subject he thought, maybe she had spooked herself talking about souls walking the Earth and getting ready to leave tonight. Girls are easily spooked, Paul reminded himself.

“So this will sound bad, but it was kind of loud when we met and I can’t remember what you said you did for a living.”

She didn’t answer right away, but when she did she broke her stare into the bedroom and downed the cider as if she was about to leave. 

“I work for my Grandmother.”

“You enjoy it?”

Her smile creased her face, but no rosy cheeks balled. She still appeared distracted, almost as if she was trying her best not to look back into the bedroom. In fact she was looking everywhere but the room.

“Hey want to go for a walk? I can whip us up some hot chocolate, and you know the lights and stuff people decorate Grove Avenue with this time of year are really pretty.”

“Is that what you want to do?” she asked with a far warmer smile.

“Sure it’s not that cold out is it?”

“No, it sounds nice,” she said.

Paul microwaved two mugs of water and then added the cocoa mix.  Even over his stirring her heard the floor creak again and he had to check to see if Melinda had returned to staring into his bedroom again.  She had, and even he had to check and see if that creepy shadow was still missing. He was grateful this it was. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Perhaps, it was a nice thought, romantic even, that souls can remain on Earth for a little bit, but Paul was pretty certain you were dead when you died. That made sense to him. The microwave dinged, as Melinda buttoned her coat back up.

“You need a hat,” he said and dashed into his bedroom. He heard her gasp and it made him freeze for just a moment before he quickly snatched up the Santa hat.  Two steps backward got him out of the bedroom.

“Festive,” she said as she donned the cap.

“After you.”

Melinda stepped out and Paul took a moment to lock the door, and then they were out on the sidewalk, warm mugs in their gloved hands, and the hot air rising up. The orange glow of the street lights cut through branches. Down the street, homes were all lit up for Christmas.

“Not quite like downtown or Lewis Ginter,” he said, letting the warm air off the hot chocolate rise to his lips.

“It’s still real pretty. Would make it harder to leave, wouldn’t it?”

He didn’t answer, he was enjoying this moment, and that raised his suspicion. Maybe Melinda was a ghost and she just wanted company on her last night. She was definitely a hot ghost.  He paused and they both stopped and looked at the white lights immaculately wrapping bushes and railings, around the windowsills and along the gutters of a beautiful brick house.

“That’s nice. Classy,” Paul said.

“You’re not a fan of the bright colors and inflatables?” She nuzzled against him.
A ghost couldn’t do that!

“No I like that, but it’s not me, I think I’d do something like this,” Paul said.

“Me, too. It’s just pretty. Everyone celebrates Christmas in their own little way, and it all sounds so nice I think. Just being together with loved ones…”

“What does your family do?”

“Well it’s just my grandmother these days, but it’s nice. I come over Christmas morning and we unwrap some presents and she makes a big breakfast with cream cheese braids, oh it’s so good, and then we sit around in new slippers and sweat pants all day, taking turns passing out on the couch and talking about things. It’s nice.”

“That sounds nice,” Paul said and they started walking again. “My family decided it was too expensive to get presents for everybody and so they decided to explore that awful idea known as Yankee Swap?”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s this horrible game where people keep trading gifts, stealing gifts until everyone has a gift they either don’t deserve or don’t want. I may have missed the joy in the concept, but it’s not Christmas. It’s an offensive April Fool’s Day joke.”

“Chinese Christmas!” she said.

Paul put on a thick drawl and said, “Don’t be racist. You’re in the south, it’s called Yankee Swap, because its unwanted and unwarranted.”

They laughed and shook their heads, then went silent.

“I like your jacket,” she said just before the silence became too much.

“You told me that the night we met.”

She nodded. “I suppose I did.”

There was still plenty of traffic going up and down the street. It surprised him at first, but then he remembered Midnight mass and thought a little more. “What you were saying earlier, that’s why they hold Midnight Mass?”

“I guess so.” Melinda shrugged.

“It’s definitely interesting finding out why we do things, all these traditions that evolve from something that we don’t talk about anymore.”

Melinda shook. It caught Paul off guard, was she that cold. He wrapped his arm around her and the awkward move was made more awkward by the fact that Melinda tensed. She didn’t say anything so he kept it there, and hoped she’d get used to it and relax. When they reached another end of another block he asked her. “Are you cold?”

She didn’t answer correctly. She said, “I have never been so close before.” And then gasped, “To so many.”

What the hell did that mean? Paul almost blurted out, he restrained himself and as they crossed to the next block he adjusted his arm so he could drink his hot chocolate.

She froze. “Can we go back?”

“Yeah sure.”

They turned around and her eyes were back over her shoulder, looking back down where they had been heading. She started to speed up and the increase in speed almost tripped Paul as he dodged roots that had fought their way through the sidewalk.

“Melinda, what’s wrong?”

“There’s just too many of them. There shouldn’t be that many here, not in Richmond.” She shook her head as if she wasn’t responding to Paul at all, but verbalizing the conversation she was having in her head.

“Who? What?” Paul had a hard time adjusting to Melinda’s pace.

“It’s getting close to midnight.” She spoke with such a strong tone that Paul knew she was talking about the souls’ last day on Earth.

He almost said her name, called her back, but he didn’t feel like he knew her well enough to grab her and stop her. They were already up the steps and into his apartment before she stopped. She gnawed through her gloves at her finger and stood, looking more like she was pacing back and forth, deep in thought. Paul fought his keys out of his pockets and eventually had to remove a glove to unlock the door. He swung the door open and was greeted by the roaring heater.