Chapter 4: Ghosts of the Past

The yawning void of the furnace melted away into a puddle of bright lights. Mike covered his eyes and groaned, the sudden intensity blinding him. His arm was sore where the ghost of Christmas Past had grabbed him, and he rubbed at it absentmindedly.

He was standing in an apartment, but didn’t recognize it. All around, he could see Christmas decorations, old school metallic tinsel and a tree decorated with bubbling lights. Based on the wood paneling and the record player churning out Bing Crosby, his best guess was that he was in the eighties.

“I’ve seen stranger things,” he muttered. Movement behind the tree caught his eye when a little boy of about three emerged from beneath the pine branches. He was pushing a toy car on the floor, making vroom sounds with his mouth.

The boy looked up and through Mike. It was amazing how much he looked like Callisto. So it wasn’t the eighties, but the mid-nineties. The decor hadn’t been updated was all.

“Ooh, spooky. My childhood.” Mike dragged out the words and waggled his fingers. Turning around, he was pleased to find the spirit behind him. Christmas Past sat on a nearby side table like a demented Elf on a Shelf. “Okay, I’ve seen the Christmas specials. You show me my past and remind me of the true meaning of Christmas. But since this place is decorated, I’m afraid you won’t have many other good moments from my childhood to share. Mom barely registered that Christmas existed. Also, what gives? Why am I even here? I’m not some fudging miser who...” Mike paused. “Fudging. Fuddddge. Sprinkles. Oh Kringle, I sound like Holly now.”

Christmas Past twisted their lips up in a sadistic grin. “These are the shadows of things that have been. They have...”

“Yeah, yeah, they can’t see us.” Mike picked up a coaster and threw it toward his younger self. It vanished in a puff of static and reappeared on the nearby table. “But still. I’m not some crumbling cookie that ... really? Crumbling cookie?” He hated that his lips twisted into the family safe vocabulary. Shaking his head, he looked at the spirit. “I don’t hate Christmas. I don’t hate people. I actually quite enjoy Christmas and giving to others. So what’s the purpose of me being here?”

The spirit responded by opening its mouth wider than its head, letting out a soul-piercing shriek. Mike plugged his ears as the spirit’s body shifted around the room, transforming several times. This certainly hadn’t been covered in any of the movies he had watched. If he didn’t know better, he would say that the spirit wasn’t sure why he was here either.

Christmas Past slammed back onto the side table, sending a visible ripple through the room. Toddler Mike slid back under the tree on his belly as time reversed itself, then came crawling back out once it stabilized.

“These are the shadows of things that have been. They have no consciousness of us.” The ghost repeated itself as if reading from a script. “Do you recognize this place?”

“Nope. I haven’t even seen it in pictures.” He wandered the room, then contemplated the child under the tree. It was strange seeing his younger self. “You’ve got a long fudging road ahead of you,” he told the toddler. “You can thank your mother for that.”

As if on cue, someone in the kitchen started singing the chorus to Jingle Bells. He was surprised when his mother emerged from the kitchen holding a plate with a small stack of bell-shaped cookies. She was in a sweater dress with leggings, and her cheeks had a healthy glow. There were actual curves to her face and body, which was something Mike had never seen. In her final years, she had lost enough weight that she had taken on a thin, hawkish appearance that made her look downright predatory.

“Mikey, would you like a cookie?” She sat down on the couch and placed the plate next to her. Mikey bolted from beneath the tree, but his mother used her foot to hold him back. “Hang on, mister, you haven’t paid the cookie toll!”

Mikey blew several kisses at his mother, and she moved her leg so he could sit next to her. Pulling a book from behind the side table, she opened it. “Can I read you a story?”

“This isn’t real,” Mike muttered. There was no fudging way.

“But it is.” The spirit drifted around behind the couch. “This one was buried deep inside you, but it is here for you to behold.”

The front door slammed and heavy footsteps came through the house. A man in a stocking cap walked into the living room carrying a pair of grocery bags. He smiled and held them up in victory. “I’ve got eggnog!” he declared.

Mikey squirmed out of his mother’s grip and ran to his father.

“Dad.” Mike barely managed to say the word as he sat on the edge of the recliner. This was a man relegated only to rare photographs, and was otherwise a complete mystery. His nose was a bit longer than Mike’s, and there were smile lines all around his eyes. He wore a brown leather jacket that was dusted lightly with snow, and when he walked past Mike, the scent of the wet leather triggered memories of being scooped up and held tightly. Mike wiped tears from his eyes, not sure whether to be grateful or angry.

“Were you good?” Mike’s father pulled a small candy cane from his pocket and unwrapped it.

“Yep!” Mikey held his hand up and took the candy.

“Honey.” Mike’s mother frowned. “He won’t eat dinner if you give him sweets.”

“Don’t think I don’t see that plate of cookies.” He winked at his wife and sat next to her on the couch. “Now give me some sugar.”

Smirking, she handed him a cookie. He laughed, then stole a quick kiss from her before taking it.

“Give me sugar, too!” Mikey’s face was now covered with red streaks from the candy cane. His father scooped him up and kissed his cheek, then blew a raspberry that had Mikey chortling in glee.

There were so many questions that Mike had for the man. If his timeline was correct, this was the last Christmas he spent with his father. He would fall ill in the spring, and die before the summer. It was hard to believe that this was his family. He didn’t know how to reconcile his mother’s later behavior with the woman before him now. She had baked him cookies and read him stories. What had turned her into the emotional wrecking ball she had become?

“Why?” he asked her, knowing full well she couldn’t hear him. “What fudged you up so bad that you turned into a raging grinch?”

His mother stared ahead as if lost in thought. Mike recognized the look, it was the same one he made when he was thinking. Kisa had even snapped a picture to tease him with. When he was caught up in his own head, she liked to text it to him sometimes. With his mother, though, it was different. A switch had been flipped, and she had become disconnected from the world around her.

Noticing her sudden silence, his father wandered over and nudged her leg.

“Hey. Did you remember your medicine?” The playful tone was gone, replaced with worry. The mood was suddenly serious, and Mike was unsure why.

“Hmm?” She shook her head. “Oh, no, I didn’t. Sorry, I’m so scatterbrained, thanks for reminding me.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” His father smiled at Mikey. “And this one, too, when he’s older.”

“What medicine?” Mike asked, then followed his mother out of curiosity. As far as he knew, other than the occasional street drugs, she had never been on anything. Maybe it was a seasonal cold or something, Santa knew he got them most years until he inherited the house.

Going to the master bathroom, she opened the medicine cabinet to reveal a couple different prescription bottles full of pills. She swallowed a pill from each with water, then stared at herself in the mirror as if lost. After a few deep breaths, she put on a fake smile and walked back to the living room.

“Not all struggles are apparent to a child.” The spirit appeared next to Mike, now just a floating head surrounded by a halo of hair. It had taken on his father’s features. “Those pills were meant to help her. But after your father died...”

“She would forget and stop taking them. But that shouldn’t matter, should it?” Mike opened up the medicine cabinet and pulled one of the bottles out. “Risperidone? What is that for?” He turned the bottle around, but it only had dosing information on the handwritten label. Frowning, he contemplated the pills. Was it an antipsychotic? Had his entire fudged up childhood been the result of a forgotten prescription?

“Don’t you see? You’ve hated her for so long, but now you know the truth.” A triumphant grin was plastered on Christmas Past’s face. “Your father’s death broke her, and her condition got worse as a result. You’ve spent your whole life hating someone because of events outside of their control. Doesn’t that make you feel bad?”

It felt like he was spinning. The deep-seated hatred he had for his mother suddenly felt so shallow. He had always assumed that his father’s death had broken her and she had just been too weak to put herself back together, but now there was an additional layer. Who else knew? Had her friends? His father’s friends? When he looked at Christmas Past, they had an expectant grin that reminded him of the Cheshire cat.

“No, it doesn’t. I still hate her for the things that she did. Even if her actions weren’t entirely her fault, she still tormented me as a child and screwed me up as an adult. It’s okay to understand why somebody does the things they do and still hate them for it. If anything, I feel sorry for her, but that’s it. What’s done is done.”

Christmas Past looked like they had been slapped in the face.

“You aren’t very good at this,” Mike told them. “I’m really not sure what you’re trying to accomplish here, but a raccoon weilding a kitchen knife would threaten me more than you do.”

The spirit flickered, parts of their face expanding like a balloon and then deflating. Their cheeks were now red, and their eyes had gone crooked.

“Oh, dear,” Mike muttered. “Did I hurt your feelings? Eat my candy cane, you sad excuse for a spirit.”

Footsteps at the door made him turn around. Mikey stood there, holding what was left of his candy cane in one hand and his toy car in the other. He stared right at Mike, curiosity in his eyes.

“I thought they couldn’t see us?” He looked over at the spirit, but Christmas Past had folded in on themself like a sheet of origami for the darned.

“I’m not some fudging miser!” They shouted in Mike’s voice over and over again. Mikey put his hands over his ears and ran away as Mike contemplated the spirit. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but it was clear he had broken the darned thing.

“Do you come with an off switch?” he yelled.

“Miser! Miser!” Christmas Past screeched. Its body popped out of existence, leaving the ghost as nothing more than a floating head. The spirit seemed disoriented as it spun aimlessly, growling with menace. It drifted into the bedroom until it was facing the open door of the hallway. Just outside the room, Mike heard the patter of Mikey’s feet on the hardwood and the spirit’s pupils dilated as it sniffed the air.

Howling, it darted forward into Mike. Anticipating this, Mike snatched it by the hair and spun it into the mirror. Upon making contact with the spirit, he felt a cold chill shoot up his arm, his fingers tingling. The glass shattered, then time reversed until the mirror was whole again.

“What on Earth was that?” It was his mother’s voice. Whatever was happening, whether dream, memory, or reality, Mike couldn’t chance accidentally changing his own past. This was supposed to be a construct, but he couldn’t know for sure. He pushed the bedroom door shut and pressed the button to lock it.

The two of them struggled, but the spirit had very little mass and was now moaning. Mike opened the nearby window to shove it outside, but the cold, white sky was gone. Instead, a dark void had replaced it with tiny lights in the distance.

“Mikey, did you lock this door?” His mother was rattling the doorknob now. “Honey, get the screwdriver.”

“Good a place as any,” Mike declared, then dove outside with the spirit wrapped in his arms. As they fell, he saw his memories spread out like holograms, all of them frozen with lines of static like an old VCR screen. Grabbing onto the spirit, he tilted his body toward one of the memories and crashed into it.

He slid across the polished floor of a hotel lobby, clutching Christmas Past’s head to his body. Through the windows, a ferocious blizzard churned, and Mike saw a younger version of himself sitting in a lounge chair and staring out into the snow.

“Ah, nice. The year my girlfriend Rebecca and I got stranded while traveling.” They had gone to visit her family for Christmas. However, a storm had diverted their plane, forcing them to stay in a place by the airport. If he remembered correctly, she was upstairs in their room wearing red and white lingerie while crying hysterically. He stood, using just his legs to keep the spirit from escaping. “If you were trying to fudge with my head, this would have been a better place to start. Remind me of the people I hurt instead of expecting water works for my parents. Now I know you’re just being a jerk. You stink at this.”

“This was the year that—” Christmas Past’s next words were choked off when Mike squeezed.

He knew what year it was. Rebecca had been nice enough, easily one of the best women he had ever dated. The fight had started because of his impotence. She was crying because he had turned her down mid-blowjob. Rejection was a door that swung both ways, and he regretted how hard it had hit her on the way out.

“It gets better, buddy.” Mike patted his past self on the shoulder, then shoved the door of the hotel open. Once outside, he turned his attention to the head in his arms. “And yes, Rebecca would end up marrying a fine man and having kids with him. So I don’t need to hear your narrative doody regarding what-ifs.”

Christmas Past struggled in his arms, but couldn’t escape. Mike noticed that its face now looked like Rebecca’s, the hair streaked with auburn curls. Curious.

“So tell me why you’re so weak right now. You were able to handle me and Yuki at the same time in the real world, but now you’re like a kitten. Why is that? This is your domain, you should be in charge here.” He headed for the corner of the street. It was freezing outside, but he no longer cared.

The spirit bit him hard enough to draw blood, but he ignored the pain. If the last memory had boundaries, this one would, too.

It took him another minute, but he found it. A car on the street simply terminated a couple feet early, like the trunk had been sheared away. Though the street continued, Mike kept walking and found himself tumbling once more through the darkness. Christmas Past almost got away from him, but he wrapped its hair around his hand and reeled it back in.

This time, he tried to dodge his memories. Christmas Past fought him anew, pulling him into a couple of different Christmas days. They battled through the Christmas Mike had spent doing raids in World of Warcraft all day, then the time he went to a Christmas party and got drunk before puking in the fountain. The spirit’s strength waxed and waned, and he had a theory why.

Mike wasn’t Scrooge. The whole point of subjecting Ebenezer to the three spirits had been to reform him, to make him into a better person. He didn’t know why the spirit had come for him. When questioned, they had freaked the fudge out.

No, this had to be a fool’s errand, which meant there was more behind the sudden shifting of the tide. If the spirit’s sole purpose was reformation, then pushback from the victim would be expected. Making them mad shouldn’t cause control to shift so drastically, something deeper was happening.

He theorized that Christmas Past must be losing strength because this wasn’t what they had been designed for. It was no different than when he had used his magic to shock Yuki. Back then, he had drained himself to nearly nothing in moments. Christmas Past was running out of steam trying to make Mike miserable rather than reform him.

But that wasn’t all. He wasn’t the only one in here, which meant that the ghost was split between dealing with him and the kitsune. They had already lost the narrative for Mike and were unable to contain him. Trying to torture him with a past he had come to terms with was like peeing in the ocean to make it taste salty.

Yuki, however, was just coming around to the idea of spending time with others at the house. He guessed that there was plenty of past misery to be found in her head.

This theory was confirmed when he and the spirit entered a new memory, one that he didn’t recognize. He was standing on the side of a mountain, and up ahead, a stony tower jutted from the rock as if built there by mistake. It was where Yuki had been imprisoned for so many years in her own personal hell.

Gazing out at the horizon, it was clear that this memory was far larger than his had been. Was Christmas Past more powerful here? He stumbled and slid down the rocky slope in an attempt to get to the road that led to the tower. As he had hoped, they had fallen far enough that Christmas Past had run out places to trap him, but Yuki was hundreds of years old and her memories would run deep.

The ghost exploded in his arms, transforming into tiny stars that shot through the air toward the tower. Mike got up and ran after them, doing his best to keep pace. He assumed the spirit was pulling itself together, and he needed to get to Yuki before...

Well, he wasn’t sure. But whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

When he arrived, the bridge was pulled up. It was the primary defense from the centaurs in the valley below, and there was a long drop straight onto jagged rocks below it. He wouldn’t be able to get in the front, not without climbing the sheer rocks nearby. There was a way he could climb down from above, but he would have to take the long way to get there.

“Mother fudging Kris Kringle,” he swore as he made a run for the back entrance.

“Absolutely not.” Lily stomped her foot on the ground in indignation and turned her back on Death. All around them, shapes shifted in the mist and the air was filled with the growls of angry demons. “There is no fucking way I’m putting those on.”

“But Lily, it says right here in the book that you have to wear these if you want to be Santa’s Official Helper.” Death waved the manual overhead to emphasize his point. He was now wearing a hat that matched Santa’s coat, as well as a large, faux beard that had been tucked away in the bottom of the storage compartment. Clutched tightly in his other hand were a pair of green shoes with comically curled tips.

“I’m not wearing those clown shoes,” she declared. “I have the ability to wear whatever the fuck I want, and I can’t think of anything that would make those shoes look remotely palatable.”

“Cerberus didn’t complain about what they had to wear.”

Lily looked over at Cerberus. Now in human form, each head wore a headband with reindeer antlers, the center head also wearing a bright red nose. Somewhere in Santa’s bag, Death had found a package labeled Cerberus with an extremely gaudy Christmas sweater inside that fit over their top heavy frame.

“Yeah, well they have to wear that, don’t they? Otherwise,” she put her fingers in the air and made quotes. “They can’t pull the sled.”

“Sleigh,” Death corrected.

“Whatever. I don’t need to wear those fucking shoes just for a ride-along. Since you insist on playing dress up, there has to be something else I can wear instead.”

“Hmm.” Death contemplated the manual once more, then rummaged around in the storage compartment. “You apparently also get a candy cane and a special sticker.”

“Special sticker?” Lily spun about and snatched the manual from Death’s hand using her tail, fingers sprouting from the tip of it to hold the book open in front of her eyes. “Death! It says right here that Santa’s Official Helper is a ceremonial position for any children who might get to ride along for a bit! It doesn’t do anything!”

“Oh.” Death frowned, then whipped around and sliced through a small demon that had made an attempt for the bag. The thing looked like a cross between an aardvark and a bobcat, and it wailed in agony before something shot out of the mist to carry away its upper half. “Oh, darn. I got demon’s blood on the sleigh.” He leaned over the side and used his thumb to smear it off.

“Okay, here it is. I just need to wear one of the spare hats, there’s a safety feature which keeps me from falling out. Not that it matters, because I have wings, but the last thing I need is to get dumped over the Atlantic.” She got into the sleigh and moved around Death to access the storage compartment. There were a couple of spare Santa jackets, plenty of blankets, and a few hats tucked inside. It was easy to see that, just like the bag, the sleigh was bigger on the inside.

“There.” She pulled out a Santa hat that had a red rim around the edges and black velvet up top. “I like this one.”

“Oh, it made your ears pointy!” Death flicked Lily’s ear with a bony digit, making her jump. A quick touch confirmed that he was right, and no amount of concentrating seemed to undo the transformation.

“Oh, fudge it. Fudge? NO!” She started to pull the hat off, but the ground trembled beneath them, knocking her off balance. Death frowned, his attention on the demons now sprinting around them, creating a stampede. Horrors from the depths of the pit scrambled by, crushing each other against its red velvet exterior.

If the stampede was a storm, then an eye had formed around Cerberus. The three-headed woman bared their fangs and transformed back into the hellhound, complete with a massive set of reindeer antlers on each head. The sweater transformed into a harness in a burst of golden light, with a lead rope bedazzled in silver and gold bells that connected Cerberus to the sleigh.

The eye of the storm was tightening as the frightened demons broke formation and tried to run over the sleigh. The hellhound blasted the coming horde with flames from their mouths, scorching the dry earth and turning demons to ash. The Rudolph nose fell off the center head and was incinerated in the flames. The demons split even farther now, and collisions with the sleigh came to a halt.

“I have a bad feeling, deep in my bones.” Death stared intensely at the mist as a giant creature blotted out the ghostlight that lit the Underworld. Seven massive necks stretched into the sky above a body the size of a large building, and a bass note that rattled Lily’s rib cage sent a ripple through the fog.

“Holy heck!” Lily slapped Death on the shoulder. “We need to go. Now!” This wasn’t some random monster roaming the Underworld, but a biblical evil that would have zero qualms about swallowing them whole.

A cacophony of roars filled the Underworld as the creature turned all seven heads in their direction. It marched toward them, the Underworld now silent save for its heavy steps.

Cerberus bolted, pulling the sleigh behind them. Golden sparks formed around the runners of the sleigh as the hellhound raced toward the iron gate. Silver light surrounded them as the sleigh expanded the world to allow them to slip between the bars.

The Yule Cat was waiting, but its eyes widened as Cerberus blasted it with fire, knocking it off the roof of the garage. The air reeked of burnt hair, and the cat howled as it rolled around on the snow, crushing one of the trolls. Spectral chains formed around the hellhound’s necks, tethering them to the Underworld gate. The lumpy potato trolls raced forward, each of them trying to board the sleigh as Cerberus ran in a circle in the backyard. Crimson flames danced along the surface of the snow, holding back the attackers as Lily stabbed one right between the eyes with her stinger, knocking it free.

Cerberus, confined by the chains, couldn’t get past the fountain. The Yule Cat was waiting for them when they circled back to the gate, its fangs bared and smoke rising from its scorched fur. An eerie mist surrounded it, sinking into the Yule Cat and repairing the damage that had been done.

“I thought you said the chains wouldn’t be a problem!” Lily kept her head low as the Yule Cat leapt over Cerberus and raked claws across their flank. Cerberus growled, then snapped at the giant cat. It was surprisingly nimble for a creature so large, and was able to duck away. The chains tethered Cerberus to the Underworld, and when Lily had brought them up, Death had brushed off the question. He had been right about every other crazy thing that had happened, that she had just figured it was yet another Christmas miracle.

“And they won’t be!” Death stood on top of the sleigh, held in place by the magic of the hat he wore. He lifted his scythe up high, the blade reflecting the light of the moon. The fires in his sockets burned bright as he brought the scythe down on the chain. “For they are spiritual shackles and my blade is sharp!”

There was a loud explosion as a wave of emerald light billowed outward, knocking the trolls and the Yule Cat away. A wave of energy passed harmlessly through the house and surrounding area as Cerberus, now unchained, surged forward. The bells on the harness jingled sharply as the lead was pulled taut, and the sleigh shot across the snow.

“Yes! Yes!” Death tucked his scythe under one arm as the sleigh tilted upward and Cerberus sprinted into the sky. Lily looked back to see the Yule Cat and the trolls transform into a sickly green mist that followed them. “We are flying, Lily, flying!”

“This is ridiculous,” Lily muttered, then looked forward. Cerberus had no trouble running through the sky, leaving golden paw prints that floated in the air behind them as they went. The snowflakes suspended in the air bounced away from them as they passed, though more than a few accumulated in Death’s beard.

Looking back again, the mist was close behind them, but was definitely slower. Lily wondered if the trolls and the Yule Cat were related, as their mode of transportation was identical.

“I have never felt more alive,” Death declared. “I can see so far from up here!”

“Yeah, flying is pretty cool, no big deal.” She flopped back in her seat and put her legs up. “So we just have to stay ahead of those idiots until Romeo finishes whatever he’s doing at the pole. Easy.”

Death said nothing, his focus on the reins. Every so often, Lily would look back to see if they had lost the Yule Cat and friends yet. The mist fell further back over time, and it wasn’t until they were in the middle of the Atlantic that they finally lost them.

“It’s about fudging time,” she declared, then frowned. She hated this hat. “But we’re safe for now.”

“Indeed.” Death was sitting now, his eyes on the horizon. “And now the real work begins.”

“What real work? We protect the bag, that’s it.” She saw the wicked grin on Death’s face and sat upright on her seat. “Hey, no, we’re not doing anything extra! Let’s keep things simple, there’s no reason to deviate from avoiding that stupid cat. In fact, if we just stay over the ocean, it can’t even bother us. We can be sky pirates if you want!”

Death turned his head. “Ah, but this sleigh has a purpose. There are millions of sleeping children out there who are expecting presents in the morning!”

“No! Absolutely not! All of this is crazy enough, but I fudging refuse. Fudge! Darn it!” She grabbed her hat and tried to rip it off, but panicked when it wouldn’t budge. “What the heck? Why won’t it come off?”

Death chuckled. “Oh, I think you know why. Santa’s helpers wear these hats, dear Lily, and if we aren’t delivering presents, why, we’re no help to him at all.”

“No.” She shook her head. “There’s no way we can do this, and we shouldn’t even try. What, are we just going to sneak into people’s homes and bring them gifts?”

Death reached into his coat and pulled out a scroll. He wrapped the reins around a hook, then opened the paper. “Amelia Anderson. Very good. Has three presents. Her brother Manny, good, has two small presents. Their next door neighbor is Ronald Walton, he is getting a bike this year.”

“Where did you get that?” LIly felt the blood drain from her face.

“It was with the manual. And look, there’s even a map!” He tilted the paper toward her to reveal a small map with a dot in the middle. “I know right where this is, I’ve memorized every map I’ve seen. And look!” He pulled the compass out of his pocket. “This is for if we get lost. Useful presents are the best kind, you know.”

“Oh, fudge. Oh, fudge.” She sat back and put her face in her hands. They were just supposed to get away from that fudging cat, how did things spiral so far out of control?

Death pulled a pair of mugs from his coat and set them down on a small flip tray in the center of the front wall of the sleigh. A moment later, he held a large thermos.

“I found this as well,” he told her, then undid the top. The smell of hot cocoa filled the air as he poured out two cups. From another pocket came a baggie full of baby marshmallows, and he dropped a few in each cup.

“You’re ... you...” In disbelief, she watched as he picked up one of the cups and sipped from it. One of the marshmallows was already melted, and had gotten stuck between his teeth. “What about Cerberus? Surely they don’t want to spend Santa knows how many days delivering presents.”