By Hannah Carter
“Merry Christmas, Eliza.”
My husband Reynolds ruffled my dark hair, waking me. I came to on the living room couch with a gasp and wiped my mouth. My fingers passed over the pillow lines on my face.
It was nice to have a body again, after being dead for so long.
The thought jolted me awake before Reynolds could even offer me coffee.
“You okay?” His brown eyes searched my face as he proffered me a mug. Sparkling multicolored Christmas lights danced off its smooth surface. “You fell asleep during A Christmas Carol last night. You looked so peaceful, I didn’t wanna wake you.”
I gulped my coffee, relishing its burn on my tongue. It helped situate me in the present. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t dead. I’d just had a bad dream.
Reynolds settled on the couch, wrapping his arm around me. He kissed my temple, his lips warm and coffee-scented. “If we’re really quiet, we might get a moment of peace before the kids wake up and want their presents.”
I took another sip. That’s right. We had two children, Elijah and Missouri. I wasn’t dead. How utterly absurd.
Right?
“Reynolds, do you believe in ghosts?” I tapped my fingers against the ceramic mug. A light ding sounded each time. I certainly looked real. Felt real.
Reynolds scrunched his eyebrows. Rubbed his chin, still decorated with morning stubble. “Ghosts? No. Why? Were you visited by three spirits in the middle of the night, Scrooge?” He squeezed my shoulder, and it pinched.
I couldn’t be dead.
Something thudded down the staircase at a breakneck speed. “Careful, you two!” The warning leapt from my lips, so natural, like I’d done it a hundred times. Seven-year-old Elijah leapt over the last three stairs while five-year-old Missouri followed him at a slower pace.
“But it’s Christmas, Mom!” Elijah grinned, every bit his father made over, down to the brown hair and eyes.
“And it snowed!” Missouri carried her doll, her blonde hair rumpled.
“Peaceful moment over.” Reynolds chuckled and stood. “All right. How does presents, breakfast, and snow sound? And then we’ll go over to Uncle Michael’s.”
The children’s cheers should have lightened my heart, but instead, brought tears to my eyes.
“I’m… I’m dead, aren’t I?” The words strangled me.
Reynolds glanced down at me, brows drawn. “Liza, you okay?”
The mug trembled in my hands. “No. I’m not. This isn’t right. We’re…We’re not married. We don’t have kids. I’m a ghost, and you’re a paranormal investigator. I adore you, but…”
But we couldn’t be together, which was why this what-if twisted my heartstrings.
The silence thickened.
“Mom?” Elijah asked, voice thin. He stepped toward me, face ashen.
“Go back upstairs for a second, okay?” Reynolds kept his voice calm. “Take your sister.”
“Come on, Suri,” Elijah whispered. The stairs creaked as they retreated, much quieter than their entrance.
Reynolds knelt in front of me. “Liza, do you need to go to the doctor? What’s wrong?”
My breath came in heaves. Tears plinked into my coffee. “I’m dead. I want this to be real, but it isn’t.” I scoured my mind, trying to recover missing memories. “Something happened… Reynolds might be in danger.”
“Nobody’s in danger.” Reynolds rubbed my knee. “I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No.” I squinted, like that might make the blurry recollections clearer.
And then my Reynolds called my name from somewhere far away.
I gasped, leaping up. The mug clattered to the ground. “Reynolds? Reynolds, where are you?”
“Liza!” His voice was no more than a thin, disembodied whisper.
“Reynolds!”
“Eliza, stop fighting.” Behind me, the imposter Reynolds’ voice melted into a different, smoother tone. When I turned around, a pale, gaunt figure in a black pinstripe suit had replaced him. “This is exactly what you want. I’ve seen it.”
I gritted my teeth. “Let me out of here.”
The gray, ghostly figure spread his hands. “Calm down. I won’t hurt you. I’m giving you the second chance you deserve.” He gestured to the stairs—the kids. “You’ll never truly get the life you want with Reynolds. Stay here. No one loses. You only gain.”
I shook my head. “I remember now. You’re a poltergeist. You trap people in these… fictional delusions.”
“Not delusions. Alternate realities. Just call me the Ghost of Christmas Possibilities.” He splayed his fingers over his heart. “And I want to give you a gift.”
“I don’t want any gift you’re giving.” Despite my words, my voice quavered.
He sighed. “You’ll never get what you want unless you stay here. You can’t have a family. No snowy Christmas mornings, chestnuts on an open fire… a body.”
My heart clenched, part of it desperate to stay. To allow this to be my future. But… “It’s not real. And even if nobody gets hurt, it’s still a lie.”
“Liza!” Reynolds sounded closer now.
“I’m right here, Reynolds!”
The suburban dream vanished. I awoke with a gasp on the floor, flames close to my head. I scrambled out of the way as the pinstripe poltergeist vanished in a puff of smoke.
Reynolds crouched beside me, though he couldn’t touch me like he had in the vision. He clutched an exorcism cigarette between his fingers, still burning from where he’d used its powerful ashes to expel the ghost. “We really need to rethink you being bait. What happened? Are you okay?”
I nodded despite the pain in my chest. That reality had been a lie, but a powerful, wonderful one—one I’d have to disentangle from my heart.
Sniffing, I wiped my wet cheeks. “I actually feel bad about this exorcism, Reynolds. He didn’t seem like such a bad ghost. He wanted to help me, not hurt me. He showed me… well, what could have been, I guess. A nice fairy tale.”
Reynolds extinguished his cigarette, flicking it away. “Sometimes, the benign what-ifs are the most dangerous.” When he shifted closer, I could almost feel his warm breath against my temple in a facsimile kiss. “But there’s always hope.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The dark side of happily-ever-after. From the title, to the conception, to the moral quandary to overcome, this was my favorite in this series.
I love these two so much. This one is extra bittersweet. 😭😭 I really hope his last line is right!
Clever twist–and a great title!
My heart!!
It’s tough to see the life she wanted given to her and then taken away, even though it was fake 🥲 Great story like always, Hannah!! ☺️
bittersweet…made my heart ache…
As a mom of two, I wanted her to be the mom of those kids! 😭
Best in the series so far!
LOVE this series! So sad it couldn’t be real. Loved the read.