The Tidings - [Ghost Huntress 0.5 - A Christmas Novella] by Marley Gibson Page B

present?”
    Celia blinks hard several times. “I’m a ghost, Kendall. I can’t do things like that right now. Besides, this might not even happen. Just listen.”
    “Ugh!” Now I stab my hands into my hair. “What about that torch? Is it magical or anything?”
    She screws up her mouth. “I have no clue.”
    Frustrated, I begin to pace. “Suzanne is the nicest person and works so hard taking care of everyone in town. Can’t we rally people to help them?”
    Celia adjusts her hair wreath. “I thought you didn’t care about the holidays. Didn’t you just want to wake up and have it be the middle of January? Now you’re concerned about the plight of one Radisson family?”
    “Because they don’t deserve to not have a Christmas or to lose Max!” I find that I’m in Celia’s face, so I back down. “I’m sorry. It’s just not fair.”
    “Not much in life is fair, Kendall. You of all people should know that.”
    I bite my bottom lip. “I suppose so. What can I do to help them, though?”
    Celia shrugs and gnaws at a hangnail on her right hand. “Just remember what’s going on here. Remember those around you who aren’t so fortunate, you know? You inherited all this money from your birth father’s estate. I’m not saying you have to spend every penny, but instead of wallowing around in the self-pity of calculus, physics, and other scholarly challenges, coupled with all the attention Kaitlin is getting, along with Loreen and Mass’s wedding… well, it’s simple.”
    Celia stops talking and stuffs her hands in the pocket of her velvet robe.
    “What’s simple?” I need her to completely spell it out for me.
    Her eyes darken and she towers over me, with a booming voice like thunder. “Get the hell over yourself!”
    I recoil in utter dread that soon subsides to hysterical laughter.
    “Don’t laugh at me,” Celia says. “I’m supposed to scare the crap out of you.”
    I shake my head. “You do, sort of… I mean, you don’t really. It’s you, Cel. In a green bathrobe, you know? But I understand what you’re trying to tell me.”
    Celia waggles her torch at me. “The point is, there are people here on this earth, right here in Radisson who watch everything. They see you grow, develop, and mature. They know what kind of person you’re going to turn out to be when you get older. They know who hates. Who envies. Who has ill-will, and precious pride. We have to learn from them, take care of them, and let them see that mankind isn’t all about greed and selfishness.
    “I’m volunteering at the church to help feed people,” I note.
    The ghost acknowledges me with a head nod. “That’s a good start. You’re doing it, though, out of duty. Do it because it’s who you are. What you have to do.”
    She’s right. I’m going to be more philanthropic here in town. Not so much tossing around my trust fund money—that’s mostly earmarked for my college education—but I can give back more of myself. I can step up to do more at church, at school, with Loreen… everywhere.
    “You need to see something else,” Celia says. “Grab the robe again.”
    I clutch the fabric and we’re off again. Swooshing through time and space as if it’s nothing at all. We speed past the shoreline of Georgia, then Florida, heading farther south into the Caribbean and over the azure waters filled with tropical fish and precious coral. The ghost sets us down gently in the middle of a village hanging on the edge of the water. Sail boats, fishing vessels, and charters line the docks with offers for deep sea adventures for tourists. The sky overhead is the most brilliant blue I’ve seen since first gazing into the eyes of my former boyfriend—now Celia’s boyfriend—Jason Tillson. A nearby open market bustles with Caribbean folk buying all sorts of assorted foods and supplies this sunny morning.
    Celia breaths in deeply, absorbing the surroundings. “It’s spectacular here.”
    I close my eyes and let the warmth of