Christmas Yet to Come by Marian Perera Page B

the debits column. Uh, this is for you.”
    He took a flat package from a pocket and pressed it into her free hand. The wrapping was plain brown paper, but he had drawn a picture on it—a snowman in the garden, looking into a window of the house.
    â€œI—thank you.” She took the gift out of sheer reflex, too startled to refuse. “What is it?”
    â€œIt’s a Christmas present,” Justin said. She leveled a look at him. “Oh, sorry. It’s a volume of Swinburne’s poetry. Not new, unfortunately, but I thought you might like it.” He frowned. “Unless you can’t take anything at all back with you?”
    Laura wished she could. He’d even given her a gift. Until then, she’d more or less tolerated being human again. Some aspects of that had been pleasant, but others had been frustrating, as if to balance the experience.
    Suddenly, though, it was wonderful.
    Without thinking, she put her arms around him—carefully, because she didn’t want to spill the sherry—and rested her cheek against the softness of his jacket for a moment, all she could allow herself. His free arm went around her waist, but before he could tighten the embrace, she slipped free.
    Heat crept up her throat and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but she darted a skittish glance up through her lashes. His throat moved as he swallowed, and he didn’t look at ease either.
    But he recovered first. “Merry Christmas.” He lifted his glass and clinked it against hers.
    She sat down before the fire with her book in her lap. Pine cones were crackling in the flames, and the lit candles on the sills looked even brighter against the night beyond the windows.
    â€œI’ve been wondering,” he said as she sipped her sherry. “If your whole purpose is to make people celebrate Christmas, what about those who were raised Hindus, or Jews?”
    Laura knew little about life beyond the narrow scope of what had been her duties, but she supposed people of other religions had their own holy days. “I think it would be unfair at best to expect someone of a different faith to celebrate Christmas. And if I felt I was treating people unfairly, it wouldn’t have taken me twenty years to want a change.”
    The cool assessment in his expression softened, but she knew better than to expect him to be satisfied with the explanation, and sure enough he went on. “Still doesn’t seem entirely right to me. I mean, even those who start out Christian can lapse.”
    â€œLike you?”
    â€œI read the National Reformer . What does that tell you?”
    â€œIt tells me you read the National Reformer , whatever that is.” Laura felt she’d done more hard thinking in the last few days than she had in the past two decades. “It doesn’t have anything to do with being a devout churchgoer, you know. It’s more a question of whether you have kindness and compassion.”
    â€œAnd you don’t think I do.”
    She saw through that at once: if she admitted he was generous and considerate, her whole purpose as a ghost came into question. But no one could have called him mean-spirited after everything he had done for her.
    â€œAre you kind to yourself?” she asked.
    He didn’t seem to have a rejoinder to that, and when he raised his glass, it looked more of a salute to her than a toast. To her relief, he went on to the topic of their dinner, and told her he was unfortunately of not much use in the kitchen. “So all I have is a cold chicken my cook prepared before she left. Oh, and ginger cake.”
    â€œThat sounds delicious,” Laura said, deciding the gracious response to a victory would be to call no attention to it, but once he got up to fetch their meal, she checked the clock on the mantelpiece. Almost nine already.
    She wasn’t sure if she had till midnight or until the last minute before three, because the Ghost of