Page 25 of Christmas Spirits

“Can you move?” she asked, placing her hands on my shoulders. “We gotta get you back in the car before it decides to come back.”

It flew off?

That was lucky.

Slowly, I pushed myself up on shaky arms. That’s when I noticed my grandmother’s rosary on the ground near Arianna’s shoes.

I let her help me onto my feet again. My legs sagged under my own weight, and I was so tired, I feared I might pass out right there on the highway. Throwing my arm over her neck, she half-carried me to the passenger seat.

“Sorry for getting you tangled up in this mess,” I muttered to her, my voice as weak as the rest of me. Now I was starting to understand why Jade looked so hurt when Laurence had told her to stop bringing her problems to our door. It’s not like she’d done it on purpose. And hurting someone I cared about was the last thing I wanted to do.

She didn’t appear fazed by my apology at all. “I offered my help,” she said casually and tossed Marc’s remains into the back seat with the rest of her junk. “Besides, I was missing the danger and adventure of my scavenging days.”

The moment she closed the door, my eyes started to drift close, the fatigue coupled with the pain too great to fight anymore. I hadn’t even heard Arianna get into the car. Or manage to get it started. It wasn’t until I felt her pushing something into my hand that I woke again to find us speeding down the road, now closer to the coast and Fairport, and the sky ablaze with the rising sun.

And the thing she’d put in my hand? It was my grandmother’s rosary.

Thankful to have it close again, I let myself fall back into sleep’s waiting embrace.

* * *

Laurence’sconcerned voice floated to my ears, bringing me back to the present. “She’s been asleep for too long. I’m going to wake her.”

“Oh, no you’re not,” Arianna shot back. “Let the poor woman sleep. She needs it.”

“What if she has a concussion?” he hissed. “You’re not supposed to let someone with a concussion go to sleep.”

“I know that,” she replied in an angry whisper. “But I’m not cruel. She was exhausted.”

I peeked an eye open to see I was in a small studio with only a sink, heating plate, lamp, and box of various knickknacks. I was laying on the one piece of furniture in the room, a grey pull-out sofa.

Not seeing me awake, Laurence and Arianna continued to argue just beyond the doorway, at the top of the stairs.

I must have been back at Divine Magic, in that apartment Arianna had offered us before.

“How is anyone supposed to get any sleep around here with you two?” I said and got up. They turned to me.

“Oops. Sorry,” Arianna said. “How are you feeling?”

I noted the butterfly stitch Band-Aids on her forehead.

“Better…” But honestly, my entire body ached. My muscles clenched painfully with every step. Something shifted on my stomach as I moved, and I paused, lifting my shirt a little. When I saw the pieces of gauze taped to my skin, I winced, remembering the windshield I was yanked through. “Where’s the baby?”

Laurence tapped the baby monitor hooked to his belt. “Sleeping, like his mama was.”

I was about to ask him how he’d gotten the monitor from our place, but then remembered we’d gotten one for Arianna for the times she babysat here.

My gaze swung to a nearby window, where the silver moon hung high in the dark sky.

Wait… Hadn’t the sun been rising a moment ago? I distinctly remembered the horizon lightening during our struggle with the spirit.

But then, that would mean…

“You slept through the entire day,” Arianna explained, somehow reading my thoughts. “But don’t worry. It hasn’t been as eventful as this morning was.”

I’d lost an entire day?

“We’re pretty sure the poltergeist drained you a bit. It’d make sense why you were suddenly so tired,” she went on.

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