#12daysofghostmas

“The spaghetti turned out fine.” Edwin glances over at the colander full of spaghetti in the sink, which is properly cooked and doesn’t look like it needs immediate medical attention.

“Sure. I hope Charles likes his spaghetti crunchy.”

Edwin rolls his eyes at the ceiling. “If you are such an expert, why don’t you help?”

“Oh, no.” She takes a step back. “I told you, I’ve never cooked anything more advanced than microwavable ramen. My parents hired people to do that for us. Don’t give me that look. Did you ever step foot in your kitchen back in Victorian times, or did you have servants to do that for you?”

“I’ll have you know, I heated myself up some milk once,” Edwin says primly, leaving out the part where he burnt himself and splashed milk all over the place, earning himself a lifetime ban from the kitchen from the unamused cook.

“Wow, a real man of the people,” she deadpans. “I have almond milk in the fridge if you want to serve Charles that for Christmas dinner.”

“How’s it going?” Niko asks in a sing-song voice as she swans into Crystal’s flat.

“They just need a bit more time.” Edwin glares at Crystal, daring her to contradict him.

She takes him up on the dare, the beastly girl. “What they need is a time machine so Edwin could do everything differently.”

“I’m sure they’re—oh.” Niko’s face falls when she spots the meatballs. “You want us to eat those?”

Edwin has rarely suffered such a betrayal. “The recipe Crystal gave me was clearly defective.”

“Obviously,” Crystal says.

“Every year on Christmas, Charles talks about his mother’s spaghetti and meatballs,” Edwin says. “Since we’re alive and most likely won’t be come next Christmas, I’m going to make sure that he has the best Christmas I can give him.”

In the weeks since they came back to life upon their return from Hell, Edwin has slowly readjusted to this new existence of theirs. He’s only walked into a wall while expecting to phase through it once in the past week, which is a vast improvement. He’s even getting used to having to eat and sleep on a regular basis, helped by the fact that he falls asleep listening to Charles’s lovely, familiar voice every night.

Charles, on the other hand, has thrown himself into this second life with gusto. Every good night’s sleep, every snack, every morning feeling the sun on his face (not that there’s much sunlight to be had in Port Townsend in December) is like a little victory for him. Edwin already worries what it will do to Charles, who he recently learned is far less sanguine about his untimely death than Edwin always assumed, when this brief second life is over. So while they’re alive, he’s determined to make everything as perfect as possible for him.

Hence the spaghetti and meatballs.

“Maybe if we cover it, they’ll cook more evenly?” Niko suggests helpfully.

“Or maybe we chuck the whole thing in the trash and order pizza,” Crystal suggests, less helpfully.

“Good thinking, Niko.” Edwin places the lid on the pot. “I am so glad that one of you—”

A shrill wail fills the air. Edwin flinches and slaps his hands over his ears, but it barely muffles the sound.

“The fire alarm,” Crystal shouts, turning an accusing look on Edwin.

“There is no fire!” Edwin jerks his chin at the pot of meatballs, which at least have a lack of fire to recommend them.

“Oh no.” Niko’s eyes go wide. “Charles was doing something in Jenny’s kitchen.”

“What?” Edwin and Crystal demand at the same time. Jenny has been very clear that she “doesn’t do holiday bullshit” and she’d rather face Esther Finch’s giant snake than endure any festivities. She told them all she would be spending the day holed up alone in her flat and that she didn’t want to be disturbed. But if anyone was going to finagle their way into her kitchen, it would of course be Charles.

Her kitchen, which is now apparently on fire.

“Charles!” Edwin turns and races out of Crystal’s room and up the stairs, ignoring Crystal’s shout behind him. Charles is alive and flammable, with lungs that could easily fill with smoke, choking all the air out of him. For the thousandth time in the past few weeks, Edwin curses the frailty of the human body. If Charles is hurt…

He bursts into Jenny’s flat without knocking and finds the smell of something burnt heavy in the air. “Charles!” he shouts again, rushing into the kitchen.

“Mother fucker !” Jenny is currently waving a dish towel at the wailing smoke alarm while a sheepish-looking Charles perches on the counter to pry the window over the sink open. There don’t appear to be any flames, but a cookie sheet filled with burnt, blackened lumps.

“What on earth?” Edwin demands as the smoke alarm’s infernal shrieking finally goes silent.

“Fuck.” Charles leaps down from the counter, grimacing. “Sorry, Jenny. Not sure what happened.”

“What happened,” Jenny hisses. “Is that you hit the broil button and not the bake button.”

“Oh.” Charles looks gobsmacked. “There’s a difference?”

She points to the cookie sheet. “Obviously. When I told you you could use my kitchen, I thought I didn’t have to specify that I didn’t want you to nearly set a fire!”

“I didn’t set it on fire! Just a bit of smoke, is all.”

Crystal and Niko come rushing into the kitchen. “Are you okay?” Niko demands.

“Wow, yes, everyone please come in,” Jenny says. “On this day where I specifically said I wanted to be left alone.”

Crystal ignores her. “What happened?”

“Guess there’s a difference between baking and broiling something, isn’t there?” Charles says a little helplessly.

“There is?” Crystal asks and Edwin realizes he made a grave mistake asking her for her assistance with the meatballs. Not that he knows what broiling means.

“What are these supposed to be?”Niko peers at the blackened lumps.

Charles smiles ruefully. “I was trying to roast chestnuts.”

“Why would you do that?” As far as Edwin knows, roasted chestnuts fell out of vogue long before Charles was born, which he’s always thought was a shame. They were a pleasant treat on holidays.

“Because you once said you liked them, mate,” Charles says.

Edwin blinks. He cannot ever recall discussing roasted chestnuts with Charles.

Seeing his confusion, Charles says, “First Christmas we spent together, remember? We talked about how we would have spent the day, if we were still alive. You said you’d be eating roasted chestnuts and plum pudding.”

“How did you remember that?” Edwin vaguely recalls the conversation, one of many they had about their lives during their first year together. Eventually, the conversations petered out. Perhaps foolishly, Edwin assumed it was because Charles was growing accustomed to his death. Now, he wonders if the subject became too painful as the years went on and Charles realized his life was truly lost forever.

Charles shrugs. “Try to remember things that you like, don’t I? I wanted you to have a proper Christmas, like you would have had back when you were alive before.”

Edwin’s throat suddenly feels tight. How is he supposed to not be in love with Charles Rowland when he goes around remembering a single conversation that they had over three decades ago? And all because he wanted to give Edwin the kind of Christmas he would have had when he was alive back in the 1900s? As if any of those Christmases were an improvement over the ones he’s spent with Charles in their office.

“Jenny wouldn’t let me roast a pheasant,” Charles says.

“Absolutely fucking right I’m not letting you roast a pheasant,” Jenny snaps. “You couldn’t manage roasted chestnuts and plum pudding without nearly burning my building down. Again.”

“Oi, I wasn’t even on this plane last time your building nearly burned down. I was in Hell!”

“Is that what this is?” Crystal points at a pot on the stove, face screwed up in disgust. “Plum pudding?”

Edwin takes a look and shudders. Bits of grayish sludge bob on top of the water.

“Right, I can explain,” Charles says. “The recipe called for putting the pudding into pudding tins and standing them on a trivet over a pot of boiling water. Only problem is that Jenny doesn’t have a pudding tin or a trivet—”

“No, I don’t have a pudding tin,” Jenny snaps. “I’m not Mary fucking Berry.”

“So I thought I’d just put the pudding in a bread tin and let it float in the water. Except, it didn’t float. So now it’s more like pudding-flavored water. Might still be edible, yeah?”

“No,” Crystal and Jenny say at the same time before Edwin can be convinced to eat pudding-flavored water in order to spare Charles’s feelings. 

Edwin feels his lips tugging into a hesitant smile. “Charles, you didn’t need to do all this. I know plum puddings and roasted chestnuts aren’t exactly features of a modern Christmas.”

“Yeah, but they were features of your Christmases, and you deserve to have the Christmas you want,” Charles says. “Sorry, mate. I tried.”

Jenny claps her hands, interrupting Edwin’s reply. “Okay, this has been very sweet, but could you two gaze lovingly at each other elsewhere? I’d like to get back to—”

From downstairs, another alarm starts to blare and Edwin remembers the meatballs. “Oh, blast.”

***

Edwin gazes sadly at what’s left of the meatballs, coated in film from Jenny’s fire extinguisher. Even before the fire extinguisher, he doubts there was anything edible about them.

Charles takes a fistful of cold spaghetti from the colander and shoves it in his mouth, grinning. “Cheers, mate. Just like Mum used to make.”

Edwin gives him a withering look, which just makes Charles grin harder.

“Jesus Christ.” Jenny blows out a breath. “I’m ordering Chinese. No one try to cook anything while I'm gone."

***

“This is how I spend every Christmas,” Jenny says later as they gather in her living room, eating directly from takeaway containers. “Eating Chinese food and watching whatever shitty movie is on TV.”

“Alone?” Niko gives her a sad look.

“Yes, alone.” Jenny’s tone goes snappish. “And I’m fine with that, Niko, so don’t try to pull a Hallmark Christmas movie on me. I don’t need to learn the meaning of Christmas. Christmas is about selling more ham and pot roast than I do at any other time of the year.”

“What is a Hallmark Christmas movie?” Edwin asks, which makes Crystal and Jenny groan and Niko beam at him.

After much arguing over the remote and Jenny reminding everyone that this is her apartment and she paid for dinner, they’re watching an attractive couple strolling hand and hand past a display of Christmas lights while the woman says they just don’t have lights like this in Chicago. Edwin has never been to Chicago, but given its size compared to the small town the couple appear to be in, he finds that doubtful.

The food is quite good, at least. Edwin is enjoying his orange chicken immensely while Charles declares his lo mein “almost as good as my mum’s spaghetti.” Most importantly, no one seems to be at risk of getting food poisoning. Niko makes a big deal out of everyone opening their fortune cookies, though Edwin thinks she should have learned her lesson from the cursed magic 8 ball. His fortune says, “Big changes are coming. Embrace them.”

“I hope not,” he says, showing Charles his fortune. “I just came back to life. That’s quite enough change for me.”

“What you’ve always wanted is right in front of you,” Charles reads aloud from his own fortune, before stealing a piece of Edwin’s orange chicken. Through a mouthful of chicken, he says, “Fortune was right, mate. Incredible.”

Edwin rolls his eyes and steals some of Charles’s lo mein in retribution, which just makes Charles laugh.

On the screen, the attractive couple are standing in front of yet another display of Christmas lights while a blandly good-looking man is arguing with the young woman, apparently trying to convince her to come back to “the real world” while a small crowd gathers around them to shake their heads and stare at the man disapprovingly.

“I’d still take this over the Point No Point light show.” Jenny gestures at the TV with her chopsticks. “There aren’t any crying babies and people I knew in high school who won't stop trying to catch up.”

“Point No Point has a light show?” Edwin asks, interest piqued.

“Yeah, but it’s the same stupid displays every year and the same people who want to spend their Christmas overpaying for hot chocolate and jostling with hundreds of other people to see the same displays they saw last year.”

“We could go.” Crystal sets aside her container of fried rice. “We’ve never seen the lights here. It could be fun.”

Jenny looks skeptical, but Niko squeals in delight.

“That’s how me and Edwin spend our Christmases back home. Walking around and seeing all the different lights. Right, mate?” Charles nudges Edwin. “Edwin loves Christmas lights.”

Edwin nods eagerly.

Jenny looks around at all of them with an expression of someone who already knows she’s lost this war. “ Fine. Let me get my coat.”

***

“Dagfinn must hate this,” Charles says cheerfully as they look out across the bay, where the Point No Point lighthouse is festooned with lights, the beacon at its top flashing red and green.

“I imagine so,” Edwin says, since this appears to be the opposite of the solitude the cranky ghost craves. Their little group is surrounded by other people enjoying the view of the lighthouse, with parents hoisting children on their shoulders for a better vantage point and smiling families taking pictures together in front of the lights.

Edwin, who doesn’t normally care for crowds, finds himself unbothered by the crush of people. The lights are lovely as they reflect on the waters of the peaceful bay, which seems mercifully free of sea monsters. With a cup of overpriced hot chocolate cradled in his gloved hands and his breath misting in the air in front of him, he feels something approaching contentment. It’s hard to worry about this second life and what it means when the night is glowing with colorful lights and he’s surrounded by his friends.

“You really like lights, don’t you, Edwin?” Niko asks. “You always used to stare at the cow in Jenny’s shop before Esther blew it up.”

“I liked that cow,” Jenny grumbles, though there’s little rancor in it. She’s sipping on her own overpriced hot chocolate, which seems to have improved her mood.

“I’ve always enjoyed Christmas lights,” Edwin tells Niko. “When I returned from Hell, it was almost Christmas. I remember seeing the lights everywhere and knowing that I was truly free, that I wasn’t going back.”

She smiles a little sadly at that and squeezes his arm. “You’re not going back. Not again.”

Edwin returns her smile, wishing he had her certainty. “Come along, there are more lights to see. I believe that’s a giant seagull up ahead.”

“Oh, a giant seagull!” Looking delighted, Niko grabs Crystal by the hand and drags her away. Jenny follows them, not looking half as exasperated as she seems to be trying to appear.

Charles lingers with Edwin, looking painfully adorable with his face flushed from the cold and his curls sticking out from under the red hat pulled low over his ears. He’s already drunk all his hot chocolate and has the paper cup crumpled up in his hand, tearing little bits off of it.

“You never told me that,” he says, rolling a bit of paper between his fingers. “About coming back from Hell.”

Edwin shrugs. “You’ve seen it. There’s nothing beautiful or decorative down there. You forget things like that can exist if you spend enough time there.” His gaze lingers on the curve of Charles’s lips and the glint of his earring.

Charles bumps his shoulder against Edwin’s lightly. “I’m sorry about the pudding and the chestnut, mates.”

Edwin huffs out a laugh. “Charles, you don’t need to apologize.”

“I made a right mess of things, didn’t I? Just wanted to give you a proper Christmas.”

“This is a proper Christmas.” Edwin gestures at the lights, at the hot chocolate, and at Crystal, Niko, and Jenny, who are up ahead, admiring a display of lights in the shape of a giant seagull about to swoop down on someone’s lunch.

“Not like they were back in your day,” Charles says, sounding genuinely contrite.

“No, because my day was 1916. I won’t pretend that I don’t miss things about those days, but I find the world much improved since then. There’s no world war, for one.” Edwin hesitates, then adds, “And I didn’t have you and the Agency in 1916. Those things are worth the lack of plum pudding, I think.”

That earns him a warm smile. “You saying you like me more than plum pudding, mate?”

“Undoubtedly,” Edwin says. “And I am sorry for the disastrous spaghetti and meatballs.”

“No big deal.”

“I could have poisoned us. I too wanted you to have a Christmas like you enjoyed in your youth.”

Charles lets out a laugh with little humor. “Christmases when I was a kid were mostly watching my dad and uncles drink too much eggnog and wondering what shitty comment of my granddad’s was going to set my dad off so he’d take it out on me and Mum once everyone else went home. The spaghetti was always good though.”

Edwin’s throat feels tight. He wishes he could pop through a mirror to strike fear into Paul Rowland’s shriveled, putrid heart. “And for me, Christmas was usually about wishing the rest of the year could be like those few days. Wishing my father would be home more, wishing my mother would smile more, wishing my brothers wouldn’t ignore my existence. I would take this over those Christmases any day, even if I did enjoy the food. For me, a proper Christmas is just you and me in our office.”

The smile returns to Charles’s face, as bright and beautiful as the lights surrounding them. “Same here, mate. Though this is pretty brills too.” He squeezes Edwin’s shoulder. “Next year, we’ll do Christmas properly, yeah? We can make plum pudding, roasted chestnuts, and spaghetti together.”

“Next year…” Edwin trails off. He was about to remind Charles that they’ll almost certainly not be alive next Christmas. If they’re lucky, they won’t be in Hell. But Charles doesn’t need that reminder. Tonight, neither of them do. “Sounds like a strange sort of Christmas feast.”

“Perfect for us then, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.” Edwin feels his own lips tugging into a smile at Charles’s enthusiasm.

“And afterwards, we can go walk around and look at the lights, like we always do.”

“If the girls are around, Niko will most likely insist we watch another of those dreadful movies.”

“That’s the kind of stuff you do for family during the holidays,” Charles says with a grin.

Edwin glances over at Niko and Crystal, who appear to be trying to coax Jenny into taking a picture with them in front of the seagull. “I suppose it is.”

Charles slings an arm around Edwin’s shoulder, hugging him against his side. “Next year, mate. Christmas will be perfect.”

Edwin almost tells him that it already is, but bites back the words, because they would give far too much away. So he lets Charles steer him in the direction of the others. And with the weight of Charles’s arm around his shoulders and Christmas lights illuminating the night around them, Edwin lets himself hope for a moment that they’ll get to keep this second life of theirs, if just for long enough that he and Charles can eat spaghetti and plum pudding together next year.

***