The Spirits of Christmas Read Online Free PDF Page B

wondering what she could say to reconcile
Hannah to Nora and Toby’s presence, Akira’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out
automatically and her lips curled up as she read Zane’s text. Baby girl.
Five pounds, eight ounces. Doing fine. Home soon.
    “We’re going to find him,” she told Hannah. “I don’t know
how, but we will.” They had to. Nora needed a safe place to live. And even if
Hannah couldn’t hit Toby, living with an angry ghost wouldn’t be good for
either him or his brand-new baby sister.
    *****
     “So James is really splendid,” Zane said, a red train in
one hand, a blue train in the other. “But Edward is the oldest train?”
    “James dinks he is spyendid,” Toby told him patiently. “But
he has to pull de cars, too.”
    “Okay.” Zane nodded, adding, as he put the red train down on
the track. “Good work ethic there.”
    From her prone position on the hard sofa, hands cradling her
cheek, Akira smiled sleepily. Zane, her sweetheart, her love, her future
husband, was encouraging a work ethic? That was unexpected. Not that Zane was
opposed to work; he just thought it sensible to minimize it when possible.
    She let her eyes drift closed. It had been a late night, or
rather a very, very early morning, and if it weren’t for the two ghosts arguing
behind her, she could easily fall asleep to the soothing sounds of Zane and
Toby earnestly discussing the rules of train-dom, of which there were many. But
Rose and Hannah’s debate had too strong a hold on her.
    “You’ll like it,” Rose claimed. “It’s not like you think it
is, but it’s nice.”
    “You didn’t like it. You ain’t there.”
    When Hannah got mad, her southern accent got a lot stronger,
Akira noted, eyes still resolutely closed.
    “That has nothing to do with it.”
    “Course it does!”
    “I died when I was seventeen. I never left my house after
that. I never grew up. You got married, you had a kid, you did stuff. You
should be ready to spread your wings and learn how to fly now.”
    “That’s just stupid,” Hannah scoffed. “You expect me to
believe everyone who dies gets wings, like some kinda angel?”
    Rose stamped her foot. “That’s a…a whatdyacallit, a synonym.
A comparison. You don’t need wings over there.”
    A metaphor , Akira thought, but she didn’t say the
words out loud.
    Hannah sniffed. “I’m not going and you can’t make me.”
    “I don’t want to make you. But you can’t make people’s lives
miserable over here.”
    “All they have to do is get out of my house,” Hannah
snapped. She stomped across the room and stood between Zane and Toby.
    Akira squeezed her eyes shut. Hannah was so stubborn. Her
moment of softness over breakfast had disappeared after Akira had mentioned
Nick. If anything, the news of Nora’s baby girl had made her more determined
than ever. She wasn’t losing control. Her energy wasn’t spiking the way that of
some ghosts did. But she was pulling in power from the atmosphere, making it
colder around her, and then using that energy for petty acts of malice.
    “That’s so weird,” Zane muttered. Akira opened her eyes and
looked across the room to where Zane and Toby sat on the floor next to a complicated
layout of wooden train tracks, Hannah still standing between them.
    “Stop dat.” Toby ordered.
    “Stop what?” Zane asked, sounding perplexed. He picked up a
brown freight car and turned it over, examining its fastener. “It looks as if
the magnet reversed polarity temporarily. But I don’t know how that’s possible.”
    “Not you,” Toby told him. “It’s da mean yady. She is baking
da train.”
    “Baking? The mean lady?” Zane asked.
    “Hannah,” Akira said, sitting up and swinging her feet
around to the floor. She glared at the old woman who glared back at her.
    “Ah.” Zane set the train back down on the track carefully. He
looked at Toby and then at Akira. “Is that why it’s so cold?”
    She nodded briefly.
    “She does dat,” Toby