I bolt upright, gasping for air, terror slamming through me.
I’m still there. I never left. I didn’t get home. I—
“Mama?”
I look to see Edmund standing in an open doorway, bathed in moonlight. He looks ethereal. Unreal. A spirit come to haunt my dreams and torment me, and I scramble up, clawing at the straw as I rise and sprint to him. I snatch him up.
Real. He is real. Warm and alive.
“Mama?”
I hear the trepidation in his voice, and I set him down, gulping air as I hug him and stumble over apologies.
“It’s all right, Edmund,” August says behind me. A warm hand goes around my waist. “Your mama had a nightmare. That is all.”
Shame licks through me, and I start to apologize to both of them, but August pulls me to him and whispers in my ear, “Patience, remember? You have all you need from me, but you must grant it to yourself as well. No apologies.”
My eyes prickle as I nod. Then I draw in a deep breath, cold air searing my lungs as I realize where we are. In the barn. Standing at the door. Which was open when I grabbed Edmund. That’s what woke me—the draft of ice-cold air.
“Edmund?” I say carefully. “Were you going outside?”
“No, Mama. I was listening to the sleigh bells.”
“Ah, do you hear them, too? I did earlier. There are no sleighs here, though. Not the kind with bells anyway, and it is far too late for anyone to be out playing in the snow. I think it is wind chimes. From the house.”
Edmund shakes his head. “It is sleigh bells. Do you not hear them?”
I pop my head outside. The storm has abated, and the night is silent, the now-cloudless sky stretching above with endless stars.
“It is a very pretty night,” I say. “But I fear I do not hear any bells.”
“I do,” he says, frowning. “Even with the door closed.”
I glance at August, who moves closer to lean out and then shakes his head. “Your hearing must be far better than ours, Edmund.”
“No,” Edmund says firmly. “I hear them, Papa. Nearby. The sound of sleigh bells.”
We look at each other. The night is definitely silent.
“What did you hear earlier, Rosie?” August asks.
“I thought it was also sleigh bells, but very distant. Then I realized it could not be, and I presumed it was wind chimes, blowing in the storm.”
“There is no storm now, Mama. No wind, either.” Edmund walks back to where he’d been sleeping with Amelia’s too-small coat draped over him. He picks it up. “We ought to go and have a look. It is a mystery.”
“It is very late, Edmund,” I say.
He pulls on the long coat, which barely passes his waist. “It is a Christmas mystery, and we must solve it.”
I look at August, who throws up his hands. “Our son has spoken.”
I sigh and go to fetch Bronwyn’s coat.
9
Do I hear bells? I honestly don’t know. I did earlier, but I am no longer certain what I hear now that I am trudging to the road with my family. I keep thinking I catch just the faintest jingle, yet when I try to latch onto the sound, it disappears, as it did before.
All I know is that Edmund very clearly hears a sound that I can barely detect, while August hears nothing at all? That worries me because there is only one obvious solution: a ghost.
My son has encountered ghosts before, and they have never meant him any harm. What I fear is the type of ghost he mentioned earlier, with Miranda’s pirate Robin Hood. The spectral replay of a tragedy. We are on the road where Miranda insists she saw the pirate murdered. Is that what Edmund hears? Not sleigh bells, but the clinking of swords or a horse’s harness? The pirate’s death repeating on a loop for Edmund to witness?
“Edmund?” I say as we reach the road.
“Yes, Mama?”
“I know your aunt has been explaining your Second Sight.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“If you are hearing something we are not, and we know a pirate’s death plays out along this road . . .” I clear my throat. “I would not wish you to witness such a thing.”
Edmund says nothing. He simply continues onward, boots crunching in the snow. When I glance at August, my husband’s green eyes twinkle with amusement.
“Edmund?” August says.
“Yes, Papa.”
“Are you hoping to see a pirate tonight? Is that why we’re out here?”
Edmund takes two more steps before saying, “I really do hear what sounds like sleigh bells, Papa. I would not tell stories about that.”
August motions for me to hold my response and let Edmund continue. He walks a few more steps, leading the way, before he speaks again.
“I should like to see the pirate,” Edmund says. “I do not wish to see his death on purpose. If I spot him, I will turn away before he is attacked.” He looks back at me. “Is that all right?”
“I believe your mother would prefer you not to seek out the pirate,” August says. “At the risk of seeing something disturbing. However, as your aunt has described the poor man’s end, and I trust you do not wish to see that, then I think we might allow you to decide whether we ought to continue investigating.”
Our son gives the question due consideration. “I think so. I do know what happened to him, so if I see the navy men, I know it is time not to look.” He stops and peers down the moonlit road. “But I should like to see the pirate, Mama.”
I sigh. My gaze goes to August. Earlier, I’d reminded myself that August has been the only parent Edmund has known. Now I must remind myself that I have been the parent of a young boy for a mere two months. Edmund is learning to accept me as his mother, and I am learning to be one.
Here is one of the hardest challenges of parenting, as I am quickly discovering. Knowing when to allow a child to do a thing, trusting they have the maturity to do it, all the while praying they do not look back two decades later, horrified by what you allowed. In short, finding the balance between encouraging independent thought and not psychologically scarring your offspring for life.
I do not want him to see a pirate die, even if it is a spectral replay. However, I do trust that he doesn’t want to see that part, either, and that he will have enough advance warning to avoid it.
I’m still working this through when Edmund stops short. He stands there, staring down the empty road.
“Do you see him, Mama?” he whispers.
I quickly rearrange my features to hide my trepidation. My son is a five-year-old child seeing a pirate ghost. I may not have been parenting for long, but whether it is the twenty-first century or the nineteenth, I know how exciting it would be. I can only imagine Miranda at his age seeing such a thing. She would have been ecstatic, and while my son may be much more restrained in his emotions, he must be equally so, and I must share this excitement with him.
I crouch beside him and peer down the road. “I do not. Is it the pirate?”
He shakes his head. Then he turns and whispers in my ear, “I think it is Santa Claus.”
How much does my heart soar at that? Not the idea of seeing Father Christmas, but the fact that my son whispers it to me. He knows it may sound foolish, and like his mother, he hates looking foolish. Yet he trusts that moment with me. Oh, he’d trust the same of August, but August is not bending here with an ear to be whispered in.