Short Story - Christmas Time

I really hate Christmas. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m no Scrooge or Grinch. Momma Foyle taught her baby boy to love the sleigh bells and the whole candy cane crusted joy. It’s all the other stuff that I hate.

So here I am; it’s Christmas Eve. The carpet in the corridors of this apartment building is good stuff, not what you normal see in these places. Usually my feet tap on linoleum or scrape over the tough carpet tiles you replace in sections when the grime gets too much. No, this stuff my boots sink into the deep pile.

Some kids charge along the corridor and I flatten against the wall – wouldn’t do for them to run into me, especially as they can’t see me. Their mum races after them, laughing. Maybe she catches a glimpse of me – out of the corner of her eye – cos she frowns at the patch of wallpaper I’m crushing my wings against. But she shakes her head and continues with the chase game.

Wings? Yep, well I’ll get to that in a moment, but there’s an itch on my right pinion which makes me thinks that I’ve crumpled a feather.

Anyway, here I am: number 1431. I’ve got this neat gadget that opens any lock so I’m through that solid wood door in trice.

There’s the decorated tree in the corner - check. The client has even put an angel up top – don’t I loathe those insipid little harp players that get all the good PR. Its wings flutter in a breeze.

There’s a phone flung on the floor, screen up showing a text message from her BFF. A once beautifully wrapped parcel has been stomped flat and broken watch parts driven into the fibers.

Since the messages are telling her that her fiancé is screwing around on her, it’s no surprise that the draft in this room is from where she’s opened the door to the balcony. She’s perched on the rail. Tears leaking down her cheeks.

I wander out and lean on the railing to watch. She’s kneading the balcony rail as she sits there, still not sure she’s going to do the deed. I press the right point on my necklace pendant thingie and the invisibility falls away. 

She gasps – it takes most people the same way when their Guardian Angel appears as if by magic. We do these fine tricks with time; to the clients it looks like spells but it’s pure science.

I scratch at my head. “I agree red’s a real festive color, but not splattered over the sidewalk.”

Her mouth drops open. “But…”

“And look see down there. Y’all would land right on Santy Claus’s head.” I point out where Santa is swinging his bell and calling out for some Christmas charity.

“But…”

People point up at the balcony where my client is considering ending it all.

She’s staring at me, not the audience. “You’re from Texas!”

Some people have to point out the obvious, don’t they? “Seems like, hon. you know, if you edge this way, you could still jump and miss landing on Santy Claus.”

“Aren’t you supposed to talk me off the ledge?” She’s starting to get cross now. That’s good.

“Nope, divine grace ‘n’ all that – you wouldn’t want me to override your free will.”

“Bastard! He cheated on me!”

“Bastards do that. What they really like is when the girl they cheated on ends it all. It feeds their bastardness. Trick is finding a partner that ain’t a bastard.” I make a play of checking my watch – not that I need to worry about being on time. “Can you make a decision? ‘Cos I got another appointment in ten.”

She stares at the rail she’s sitting on surprised, like she hadn’t noticed she’d climbed on it. She clenches the rail tightly.

“Can you give me a hand off here?” She’s starting to quiver – cold? Fear of heights? Probably both if you ask me.

“Sure.” I grab under her elbow – I’m strong enough and it don’t do an angel’s rep any good to be caught groping a client – and steady her as she swings her legs onto the safety of the balcony. She staggers inside.

Seeing the cell phone, she slumps to the floor wails again. “I thought he loved me! What do I do now?”

I slide the door shut against the cold. “If it were me, I’d call that friend and get her bring over a quart of ice cream and a bottle of wine.”

I’m reaching for my pendant again.

She stares at me. “You’re not what I expected in a Guardian Angel. I mean, I never thought they came from Texas.”

I fade out of her view. As she’s calling through to her friend, I slip out of the door and head on to the next appointment.

Now when someone says Guardian Angel to you, I’ll bet you’re thinking all golden hair and snowy swan’s wings, aintcha? No need to blush. I never was a blond even, when I was alive. Your wings match your coloring, so my wings grew in like a tawny owl. Now y’all are screaming about the word ‘alive’ – how they tell it to us when they recruit us as angels, we’re the ones who died all untimely so they’re givin’ us the chance to ‘live’ out our full life span bein’ useful and helping other people who shouldn’t die out of their allotted time.

I’m no ghost.

Well not normally, but at Christmas I guess we have to do the redemption thing. My next appointment wasn’t going to be all that fun. Mostly cos it takes so long to preen the dust and cobwebs outta my wing feathers.

So I meet up with Holger – he’s kinda my mentor angel, he recruited me, but that’s a different story. It’s midnight now. Did I mention we play with time – so for some fella it’s gonna be midnight three times tonight.

Holger helps me on with the shroud-like cloak – it’s murder fitting it over the wings. “You’ve got a broken feather back here.”

“Huh?” I flap the right wing, sure enough I feel the drag of a broken plume. “I have to clean up after this anyway. I’ll preen it out then.”

“It goes with the scary costume.” Holger scatters dust and cobwebs over me. “Now remember to keep your mouth shut.”

“I don’t see why the Ghost of Christmas Future has to keep his mouth shut.”

“It’s scarier and tonight we get to terrify the man into better behaviour. And who is ever scared of your Texas accent?”

What is so odd about a Guardian Angel from Texas?

No one tells me what we are scaring the fella out of, but as I walk into his personalized nightmare he’s gibbering from the previous visitations. Yep, I’m the tall, silent one who gets to show the victim his grave and all the people giving Eulogies on the theme ‘thank goodness he’s gone’.

I tumble him back into his bed at dawn – nifty time tricks again – and he’s all about giving his money away to charity.

Yep, this angel gig is fine sometimes, but just once in a while I miss my home. But that’s the one thing they warn us against.

With Holger’s help, I shed the cloak and take off for my stomping ground in Houston to pick the cobwebs outta my wing feathers.

There’s not much traffic around on Christmas Day so I head over to the Sam Houston Park – ain’t nobody climbing off of their sofas today.

My Angel sense twangs – someone’s in danger!

There’s this woman carryin’ a heap of presents sidling between two parked cars. She’s gonna get splatted, on Christmas Day. I go from a standing start to sprint in like 0.2 seconds. I ain’t going to make it. Hands jump to my pendant – I can stop time if I have to – and I’m the only thing moving in the grey world.

Everything is lined with a rainbow halo, but the colors on the cars and the people are gone. Jumping on the hood of the nearest auto I haul the woman out of the way.

Time speeds up again.

A pick-up races past – the speed limit’s 20mph here and he’s way over.

“You saved me!” Then a gasp.

I look down – I’m staring into the face of my Momma. No really, it’s Momma.

“An angel!”

Momma is never lost for words, but I sure am. She studies my face. “Why do you look like my son, Jack?”

“Under stress, you can often see the most reassuring thing.” I can bullshit with the best.

“So I see you as my son.” She smiles at me and rummages in her bag. She holds up a candy cane. “Thank you kindly for my life.”

I take the red and white striped candy cane – I know my mouth has dropped open; no one thanks us or gives us presents.

“I’ve always known my son was a fine man – he makes for a good angel.”

She gets into her car. She glances round, but I’ve got the invisibility on – I don’t want her seeing my tears. I wanna go home and feast on turkey with Momma and Poppa and my sister and her kids.

They warn us never, ever go home, never try to contact your family – to them you are dead.

Somehow the longing sends me through time and I’m walking up the steps to Momma’s house. There’s the old porch swing – I used to kick back with the gang and a crate of beer on that bench.

Car horn – my sister’s old Buick pulls into the yard. The house door bursts open Momma and Poppa race out. Two kids clamber out the back and run for Gran and PawPaw.

I jump out of the way. No point being trampled.

My dad, Pawpaw, swings the boy up to his hip and crouches to give the girl a hug. The kids drag him inside – they want to see what Santy Claus has left under this tree for them.

Momma kisses my sister’s cheek. “I saw a strange thing on the way back from Church this mornin’.”

“What d’ya see, Momma?”

“An Angel pulled me out of the way of speeding car – it looked just like Jack, talked like him too.”

“Like Jack!” My sister don’t believe I’m the sort they make angels from. “Did Father Jenkins put an extra ‘sweetener’ in the communion wine today?”

“Don’t you cheek your Momma.”

Voices call from inside – the kids are gettin’ impatient about their toys.

“I’d better get in there and sort them – Angels, honestly Momma.”

Momma has a sad smile on her face. I pluck out that loose wing feather – I blow it with a kiss towards her. As I let go, the feather loses invisibility.

She catches the feather and touches it to her lips. “It’s nice to think that when I get to heaven they’ll be angels who talk like I do.”

At least my Momma don’t think it’s odd an Angel comes from Texas.

Holiday on the Other Side

Holiday on the Other Side

It is the first night of your holiday and you settle down in your comfortable bed. You wake in the middle of the night. The window is open and all the covers pulled off your bed. That is what happened to a tourist who stayed at one hotel in York.

         When my late husband left university he worked for a time in the York Tourist Industry. He ran a ghost walk.

By some counts there are as many as 500 hauntings within the City Walls, and more in the surrounding area. That makes York the most haunted city in the UK, maybe even the World.

There has been a city here since Roman Times. With all the churches and graveyards it was always going to create a liminal space, which touches on the spiritual world, even if there was not one there already.

So let us start our brief Ghostly Tour at the very beginning of York, or rather Eboracum as it was called by the Romans. The very meaning of the name is evocative, the Place of the Yew Trees. Yews are found in graveyards all over Britain.

In1953, Harry Martindale, then an apprentice plumber, was installing a new heating system in the basement of the Treasurer’s House. A horn sounded in the distance. Then solider in Roman dress rode through the brick wall on a great cart horse. His shoulders sagged and his face was lined in despair. Marching after him was a column of worn-down legionaries, using their spears as staffs to keep them going.

And the strangest thing of all? They were all marching on their knees.

Later excavations discovered a Roman road about 18 inches below the cellar floor.

More recently, in 2006, a driver, returning home from work, saw a rider on the road near the Four-Alls pub on the A64 rode to Scarborough. He pulled out to pass, as a good driver should, and saw the rider wore fancy dress: appropriately enough, as a highway man. Checking in his rear view mirror that he had not spooked the horse, the driver became spooked himself, for the figure, horse and all, had vanished.

Locals say Dick Turpin, the notorious highway man, still rides the night in Yorkshire.

 

While you walk within the old city, check out Mad Alice Lane – they have renamed it now to Lund’s Court. Some people have seen a grey figure drifting along that covered walk, lamenting that she was put to death for poisoning her husband.

Then there are the Royal Ghosts. The shade of Catherine Howard, who was beheaded by Henry

VIII, has been seen walking through the buildings of the King’s Manor where she is said to have conducted her affair with Thomas Culpepper in 1541. Unusually she walked through a new building, the Principle’s House. Investigators realised that she was walking in her old rose garden, which old plans located on that spot.

And finally, and most worrying for all you tourists, there is the Barghest. Don’t walk alone in the snickleways of York. Locals are safe from this huge black dog’s predations. It feeds on lone travellers, taking the shape of vast black canine with a white face – some say that the head of this ghastly dog is a skull.

If you do choose to visit York, bring a recording device. When you sense a ghostly presence, turn on your recorder for an hour or so. Then play it back at highest volume. Maybe, just maybe you’ll hear voices that weren’t audible to your human hearing.

But for those of you who are here for the shopping you’ll be pleased to know that Marks and Spencer have relocated from their haunted premises in Coppergate.