Stave the Second: The Ghosts of Christmas (and Mara's) Past

Still dark. Heh. That was damn weird. It had been a quarter to one when Mara had seen the "ghost," yet the clock now read twelve o'clock. It was highly unlikely that for some odd reason the sun would choose not to shine, so logically Mara must have slept through Christmas Day in its entirety. Jerks. Didn't even think to wake her.

Did she hear something? Mara concentrated on the small whispy voices that seemed to be coming from somewhere above her head.

"I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past!"

"No, I am!"

"What about me?"

Mara groaned, "For Chrissakes! You can all be the Ghost of

Christmas Past for all I care!"

Stupid, quarrelsome spirits. They thought they could tell Mara what to do? Hah! Many a better woman (or man) had tried and failed! Mara resolved to watch the clock for their arival.

"Quarter past," she mumbled, watching her clock radio.

Then, "Half past." Room empty.

"Quarter to it." Still empty.

"The hour itself and nothing more!" What did Beryl know? There were no spirits here! Wasn't there?
"There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven."

Mara grabbed at the radio on her bed table. It wasn't on. It. Wasn't. On. She silently began to panic.
"When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven."

Who the hell could be singing Led Zeppelin at this hour? It was past the twins' bedtime, which eliminated the likely subjects. Maybe she was wrong about Beryl . . .

Maybe . . .
"There's a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
'Cause you know sometimes words have two meanings."

"Damn you, ghosts! If you're gonna haunt me then at least show yourselves!"
"In a tree by the brook
There's a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder."

Oh for the love of the goddess! Mara moved to switch on her lamp, then stopped. Her room was light now and there seemed to be three people in white robes gathered around her bed. Three glowing people. One of which who seemed to have orange skin and pointed ears, a second strumming a guitar, and the third in need of a shave.

Mara did the natural thing in her situation. She grabbed the nearest blunt object and threw it at the unshaven one. It went right through him. Mara got progressively paler as she noticed the three were rather translucent.

The unshaven one was the first to speak, "Look, she just turned a whiter shade of pale than a second ago. Didn't she get a warning about us last night?"

"That seems to be Standard Operating Procedure, Yuui" the orange one, a female, answered. "As for myself, I think it was Steve's playing that unnerved her."

"You know I was just trying to give us a good entrance, Dekka."

Mara could take it no longer. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm not sure if hell is the operative word," the androgynous guitar-player corrected her. "We are the Ghosts of Christmas Past."

"Long past?"

"Nope. Your past. Naturally, we'll also flit around with days other than Christmas, but given today's date it seems like a good enough name.

I'm Stephen."

"I'm Yuuichirou," the unshaven one announced with a grin.

"And I'm B'dekka," the orange one, which Mara realized was a youma, finished. "You could say I was the only one of us with any common sense."

Mara smiled one of her least sinister smiles in years, "B'dekka the Beautiful, Brave, and Brilliant? The subject of half J'maxwell's poems? I'm honored to meet you!"

The male spirits looked at the female, "You were immortalized in poetry, Dekka?" Yuuichirou finally asked.

The youma blushed as much as spirits can, "Remember how I told you about my boyfriend back in the mortal sphere?"

There were knowing nods around the room. Mara decided to break the ice, "So, what exactly are you going to do with me?"

"Take you back to your past, of course!" Stephen replied. "Don't you remember Charles Dickens?"

"Oh great, I get the sarcastic spirit. Let me get off this bed at least. Well, I'm already dressed for it. So, where's the time machine?"

"That's not exactly how we operate, dear," B'dekka answered. "Do you want to do the honors, Yuui?"

Yuuichirou shook his head, "I think all those times Rei-chan screamed at me for disturbing the peace finally worked. Steve can do it."

"Do what?" Mara asked with interest, since as far as she could see all the androgyne doing was absentmindedly strumming his guitar.

"That," Yuuchirou answered, as the tune Stephen was strumming suddenly sounded very familiar, as well as the odd phrase of midnight taking its toll and keeping control that you could hear him mumble. As he grew louder, Mara tried to refrain from facefaulting.

"I remember

Doing the Time Warp

Drinking those moments when

The silence was breaking

And the voices were calling . . .

LETS DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!"

Mara glared at Yuuichirou, "You've got to be kidding."

The spirits grinned evily, "Sorry. C'mon . . . 'it's just a jump to the left!'" He demonstated. Mara found herself unwilling going along.

"'And then a step to right.' I _have_ seen the movie."

"So 'put your hands on your hips!'"

"'And my knees in tight.' I know, I know."

"'And with pelvic thrust-'"

"You're driving me insane!" Mara moaned, as Yuuichirou and the others danced. She was really gonna kill him. Or whatever you do to annoying dead people.

"LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!"

When Mara came to she realized she was wrapped up in some sort of blanket. Yellow, it seemed. It she wasn't hallucinating, then she also seemed to be next to two babies, also in blankets, that seemed to be the size of her. All three of them were in the arms of a woman who looked like Mara's mother, albeit ten times as large.

Where the hell was that jerk of a ghost? Mara tried to move her head, but only managed to swivel it slightly. There he was, with B'dekka and Stephen, sitting in the rockers that were a few feet away from the very large bed Mara, the babies, and the woman seemed to be in.

Mara suddenly realised something. The ghosts were ten times bigger than her as well. She had a sinking feeling that there was a third baby in the room. "Get me out of here," she hissed, or tried to. It came out as a gurgle. Oddly enough, the ghosts understood and B'dekka scooped her out of the giant woman's arms.

Mara blinked. She was the right size again. Where she had lay in the woman's arms, who she realised _was_ her mother, an infant with a thatch of carrot hair now rested. She had been that infant, for a second.

Mara looked pointedly at Yuuichirou. "I hope you know I didn't enjoy that one bit."

The shaggy-haired spirit shrugged, "Job hazard. Look, someone's coming." He motioned for the four to be quiet as the door to the room opened.

It was Mara's father. He sat down softly on the bed. "Rhi-chan?"

Her mother shook herself awake. "Bren-kun?" Rhiannon was smiling, a warm smile that made the room brighten even though snow lay outside.

"Have you thought about their names?" Brendan asked.

"Just the girls. I thought we could call the eldest Lalita. It's

Hindu and means, 'she who laughs.'"

Brendan shook his head. "It sounds too much like a preadolescent sex-fiend out of Nabokov. L-names are good, though. How about Laurel, like my sister?"

Rhiannon shrugged. "Maybe. Then again, we could always use a nice Hebrew name like Leah."

Mara's father made the motion of pondering that choice. "We'll spell it el-ee-eye-ay, to put a different spin on it. Leia Organa McIntyre-Muraino."

"Or to get your Star Wars obsession into the picture. You're incorrigible." Rhiannon sighed dramatically. "I had thought we could name the other Kalika, to make a matched pair."

Her husband wrinkled his brow, "Sounds sort of familiar. Wasn't Kali a goddess of some sort?"

"The goddess of death, actually, or Kali Ma. Kalika means 'she who destroys.'"

"Isn't that a bad omen? I like names with 'ma' in them, though. Marion, or Margaret or even Margrave. Hmm, I wonder if she's be flattered if we named our daughter after her?"

Rhiannon snikered, "Minako would refuse to let her children play with the child. Mara, just Mara, is a nice name. It means 'bitter' and I have a feeling it will suit our daughter."

"Mara it is. Mara Jade McIntyre-Muraino. And what about the youngest? The boy?" Brendan asked, expectantly.

His wife shook her head. "I'll give you the privilege of naming him, love, since I named all the rest." He missed the sarcasm in her voice.

Brendan studied his son. "We'll call him Luke."

"Luke Skywalker?" Rhiannon asked, trying to suppress laughter.

Mara's father was honestly suprised. "How did you guess?"

Rhiannon couldn't contain the laughter anymore and pretty soon

Brendan joined her. Mara finally looked away from her parents. "So _that's_ how I got stuck with this name. Goddess, I wish they had checked the meaning in Japanese beforehand."

B'dekka was puzzled, "What _does_ it mean in Japanese? I died before they made the youma-shak translators, y'know." Yuuichirou took pity on the youman spirit and whispered in her ear. She grimaced. "I see what you mean."

(more)