A Midwinter Fantasy Read Online Free PDF Page A

orders, but takes great care to make sure I’m always comfortable, always provided for and always supported. I cannot say I mind. It’s rather sweet to have a man like him doting. Especially in my condition,” she said, brushing her abdomen. “Now, your turn. You’ll not play the counselor and avoid being counseled.”
    Michael clenched his jaw, not wanting to speak of it. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
    Percy knowingly shook her head. “But you two have already begun.” She’d been the one to encourage him to confess his feelings to Rebecca in the first place, there in that darkened Athens foyer. Percy had been directly invested in this matter since she was first aware of it.
    “Have we? Begun, I mean? It was a desperate time. We’ve not seen one another since we laid Jane to rest, all of us fiddling and making uncomfortable small talk, stifled by grief . . . It’s been like none of us knows each other anymore.”
    “Alexi and Elijah were at each other again. I’d say life’s returning to normal.”
    Michael bit his lip and gave in to temptation. “All right, I can’t bear it. What did the spirits say about me?”
    Percy smiled. “Are you a fan of Dickens?”
    Michael blinked. “Of course. I’d have liked to have recruited him for The Guard, were we around forty-odd years ago. Who isn’t a fan of Dickens?”
    “Oh, Alexi, for one,” Percy laughed. “He claims the man a consummate fraud in ghostly matters, but I think dear Charles is rather to the point. I suppose the poor man could have used a Guard to relieve him of his three plaguing spirits, but then we’d never have such a wonderful story.”
    Michael nodded, then paused, eyeing her. “But wait . . . What are you aiming at?” Dickens? Christmas? Ghosts? His uneasiness mounted.
    Percy continued. “It would seem that spirits are interested in turning the tide. Reversing the roles. Rather than corralling spirits, as you used to do, they’ll corral you. For a time.”
    Michael furrowed his brow. “Turn the tide? Whose tide?”
    “Why, yours of course. They want to see you happy.”
    “Do they?”
    “Oh, yes. My friend, Constance, she understands this situation all too well. I’ve missed her desperately.” Percy offered a tiny, sad laugh. “The danger of having spirits for friends. You wish them peace but then, when they find it, you’re terribly lonely without them.”
    Michael’s heart swelled. It wasn’t the first time he’d wondered if she was a guardian angel as well as a mortal young woman; kindness and goodness incarnate.
    She took his hand and returned his fond expression, her white face all the more radiant. “There’s a journey ahead. Await its coming.”
    Michael raised an eyebrow. “Expect three spirits? Before the bell tolls one?”
    Percy shrugged. “Alas, while I maintain I deem MasterDickens insightful, I doubt this will play out just like his
Carol
, Mr. Carroll, so I can’t be sure of the time.”
    A thought occurred to him, and Michael felt his smile fade. “Percy . . . will it be dangerous? Will I be the only one—”
    She shook her head. “Oh, no, it’s really more for the headmistress than for you—”
    “Is it dangerous?” he pressed, even more forcefully.
    A shadow crossed Percy’s face. “While your experience has taught you to not trust every spirit, I do trust
these
,” she replied. Her voice was too careful for him to feel reassured. “And . . . I shall be on guard,” she added.
    “But your husband wants to whisk you away.”
    “Your long-overdue merry Christmas is more important,” Percy stated, stretching up to kiss him softly on the cheek. “I will find a way to remain. For safety’s sake.”
    Without another word she returned to the dining table. Michael followed, puzzling over this new development.
    Elijah was insisting that Alexi would look much better in a verdant green than in his constant black, and Alexi was regarding him—and the notion—with disgust. “Yes,