Xmas Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page B

stares. “I’m the last person she wants to see right now.”
    Pam and Prue felt likewise.
    “I can’t believe you’re going to let us all just disappear like this,” Toxic Shock Sally scolded Pam, Prue, and Eric. “Isn’t anyone here willing to take a chance and get her?”
    From the corner of the room, a small voice bravely volunteered.
    “I will,” Virginia said, remembering that Charlotte took the same chance on her once.

5
Ghost of Christmas

    Christmas Past
    Holidays are so powerful for us because more than anything they recall other holidays of the past. Christmas makes you feel like a child again, but not always in a good way. No matter what is happening in your life at that moment, that week, that year, how much progress or growth has been made or ground lost in your journey, you can easily find yourself thrust into your own personal time machine, where it can be difficult for your heart, mind, or spirit to tell exactly what time it actually is.

    “Who says you can’t go home again.” Charlotte sighed deeply. Her house wasn’t far but was a world away from the other side of town. The side where Petula, Scarlet, Damen, The Wendys, and most of the other kids at Hawthorne lived. The simple wood-sided Cape Cod house was pleasant enough, if in need of a renovation. It was designated a group home, which she never understood, since she was the only kid living there, along with Gladys, her foster mom.
    The neighborhood was run-down and had been for years. It sat inconspicuously behind a strip mall, the smell of the Dumpsters from the few shops that remained open wafting through the neighborhood and making it a must to avoid. Even the few Christmas decorations that hung sparsely from the neighbors’ roofs and doors brought little cheer to the grim environment. Most were just kept up all year long anyway, forgotten and faded. A string of Christmas lights ran along the gutters of her house too, but they remained unlit, having burned out long before she ever arrived there all those years ago.
    Charlotte approached the door, admired the colorless wreath, and stopped to read a note taped to the door before entering.
    “You are late. Kitchen is closed.”
    “No dinner,” Charlotte murmured. Of all the great things about being alive, one downside definitely was hunger. She hadn’t been hungry in ages, but all that walking and returning to life had left her famished. There was always cereal, she hoped.
    Charlotte pulled at the doorknob only to find it locked. No surprise. Gladys never cared enough to hide a just-in-case key, so Charlotte eyed the tree next to the side of the house and walked toward it, as she had many times before.
    “How are you, old friend?”
    She leaned her tired head against it, patted the trunk, and hoisted herself up onto it by the leafless, icy branches jutting from it. It looked as if it were encased in glass, making it nearly impossible to climb. She slipped and slid her way up, grabbing on for dear life, and finally stepped onto the first-floor roof. She cautiously crawled across the cedar shingles, loosening a few as she scampered to her window.
    Charlotte looked behind, noted the steep pitch of the gabled roof, and thought about all the times she’d made this risky climb and how she could have fallen and broken herneck any one of them. By comparison, death by gummy bear seemed both more embarrassing and cruel. But then, she was a choker in life, not a risk taker. That and, well, she wasn’t dead anymore, was she. She had triumphed. The fructose bear had not won after all. She considered standing up, arms raised in victory for the full Rocky, but the shingles wouldn’t permit it. She lifted her unlatched bedroom window and stepped inside.
    She reached instinctively for the wall switch and flicked it, the harsh burst of light from the dusty ceiling bulb instantly flooding the sparely furnished room.
    “Holy crap,” Charlotte said out loud, scanning her surroundings.
    There they