Chapter Three

L ouisa answered the phone at the library’s front desk, coffee mug full and eyes blinking away the blur caused by all-night reading. “Pine Ridge Community Library.”

Belatedly, she realized that it was five in the morning and she should have let the answering machine take the call. Also, it was Christmas Eve, and the library was closed.

“Hello, this is Officer Ardy Walsh. Is that Louisa?”

“Oh, hi Officer Walsh!” Louisa recalled the officer who did a safety story time every year. Plus, in a small town with only a few police, you began to recognize members of the local law enforcement.

“Are you okay? I got a few calls that lights were on in the library overnight and a car was parked outside.”

“That would never happen in the city,” Louisa muttered. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, Officer. I’m fine, I just fell asleep here and then figured I’d attend to a few housekeeping matters since I had off today and nowhere to go for the holiday.”

“What? Oh, well, hey, my wife and I are getting together with the Wymarks and our extended families tomorrow at—”

“Oh, no. No, that’s okay, thank you. I’ll probably do a video call with my brother and his family tomorrow, and my parents will be coming home from visiting my grandparents after New Year’s. I’m fine.”

“Well... If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. I’ll be leaving in a few hours—but I might be back later. You know us bookworms. Being alone in a library for Christmas is a pretty big present!”

After a few more pleasantries and reassurances, Louisa hung up the phone and returned to her legal pad full of notes.

She’d felt like a real historian through the night, chasing the town’s history through several highs and lows, and big population booms in the 1950s and 1980s. Pine Ridge’s library had been used as a school at one point in the late 1890s before the town began to expand.

But it was the fact that Mortimer Ashfield lived—and likely died—in the original building before its renovation and expansion that fascinated her the most.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Getting old.

Biological clock is pounding in my ears. Making me horny. Wanting to dream of some great lover, some secret admirer.

Which a ghost isn’t.

Not a ghost! A dream.

She sat, pen tapping, lower lip working between her teeth. She’d never had a dream like that. She woke up warm and wet, words burning in her brain as if she’d just attended a lecture and memorized every word.

I wouldn’t dream like that—with those words. With that accent.

Her dream companion had a faint accent that she couldn’t place as a foreign nationality or regional dialect. It was more like a time period, a preciseness in enunciation coupled with such poised, poetic speech.

Like a man who lived in the Victorian era?

“Mortimer Ashfield cannot be your secret admirer, idiot.”

Whap!

Louisa shrieked and whirled, pen held out in front of her like a weapon.

What are you going to do? Write him to death?

Whap!

Was that the sound of books hitting the floor in the children’s fiction section?

Pulse pounding and hand on her cell phone, Louisa crept through the library, trying not to think about the horror movies she’d watched as a teenager.

Two books lay on the floor, one next to the other.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, one classic hardback copy and one children’s illustrated copy with watercolor illustrations greeted her.

Ghosts. You’ll be visited by three ghosts.

Am I being compared to Ebenezer Scrooge? I’m not going around saying Bah Humbug! I have a tree up! I have a honey ham waiting in my fridge!

“Um. I’m not...” Words dried up in her suddenly sandpapery throat.

Whap! Thump.

A third copy of the beloved Christmas tale hit the ground, and the book slapped open as she watched, trying not to faint as all the blood washed from her body to her feet.

A rustling sound slipped against her ear, too faint and indistinct to truly make out, but she thought it was urging her to look.

Louisa stood on tiptoe and craned her neck.

The gilt letters in the open children’s book read “The Ghost of Christmas Present.”

Her dream flooded back, the unseen lover who stood behind her, whispering in her ear and massaging her body with the perfect touch, as if it was her own hands at work, had said he would be her ghost of Christmas Present. Christmas present. He didn’t mean in the moment, he meant her gift. Or maybe he meant both.

“No such thing as ghosts.” Her words were a whimper, even as she blushed at the throbbing between her legs.

Another thud. Another book. This one was farther away in the nonfiction section.

Love Poems Through the Ages read the cover of a pink book with age-yellowed pages.

A Red, Red Rose

Robert Burns.

O my Love is like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Love is like the melody

That’s sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in love am I;

And I will love thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;

I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love!

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my love,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

As she watched, something seemed to shimmer across certain phrases.

“I will love thee still, my dear, till a’ the seas gang dry...” Louisa repeated in a whisper.

Love is deathless. Every reader knows that.

He hardly knows me. I don’t know him.

And he’s dead.

I must be crazy.

“I’ll be back tonight,” Louisa whispered—and fled.