The Present

3-1

Ten-year-old me peeked out from the storage closet. The last of the people shuffled from the lobby into the theater—a blur of corseted dresses, floor-length skirts, crisp suits, and feathered hats. I ducked back inside, then squatted with my ear pressed to the door, waiting for silence.

The sound of excited chatter started to die down, then evaporated entirely. Another peek revealed an empty lobby. I scampered to the main theater doors and peered in. The unmistakable sound of the projector whirring to life told me my window of opportunity had arrived. The theater was dark, and the audience captivated. I had my distraction.

With stealth and skill for disappearing I’d honed for years, I slipped inside and up a short stairwell to the mezzanine. By the railing near thick velvet curtains, I found a suitable place to lay low. I crouched and sat with my legs folded, barely taking up any space.

The moving picture mesmerized me immediately. It was a new one just premiered last month. So far 1901 had been like any other year for me—a lot of scraping by and wishing for things I’d never have—but I had discovered and fallen in love with these silent moving pictures, and I was definitely not going to miss this one. It was called Scrooge, or Marley’s Ghost. The nuns at the orphanage read us A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens every week during the holiday season, and I loved it. To be watching the story play before my eyes was as thrilling as it was fascinating. The ability to tell a story through visuals that mass crowds could enjoy together at the same time took art, skill, and a very specific kind of magic.

A ghost called Marley was being used as a storytelling vehicle in the stead of the Ghosts of Past, Present, and Christmases yet to come. I gasped along with the rest of the audience when Marley’s face appeared on the doorknocker. What a trick!

I clutched my knees to my chest, absorbing the tale I knew so well unfold in this new medium. Dickens’ tale had always made me feel warm and fuzzy inside—my soul ablaze with spirit and hope each time I experienced it. My lips curled into an optimistic smile as one black-and-white scene dissolved into the next.

If Scrooge could change, then anyone could. That’s why I treasured this story so much. It was nice to know that people, given the right push, could be better. They could come back for the ones they love and make amends . . .

KNOCK. KNOCK.

I glanced around in panic. The distant thudding somehow made the entire theater shake. Everything melted to the same muted shades of black and white that displayed on the screen. The shaking continued and then—

“Frost! Frost, are you in there?”

Adult ghost me opened her eyes.

Where am I?

I yawned sleepily and sat up, my neck stiff from having been tilted off to the side as I dozed in my seat. I’d fallen asleep in one of the CCD’s screening rooms. I rubbed my eyes and stretched back to life, well, afterlife I should say.

Ghosts couldn’t dream anything new; sleep only allowed us to relive our past. It was no surprise that my spectral mind had transported me to that memory. A black-and-white film showing key moments of Jay’s life continued playing on the screen in front of me. Unlike in 1901, these reels had sound, but I’d lowered the volume last night as I’d gotten sleepy.

It was funny. The world had evolved so much in the last century; I was certain Specter One could have arranged some sort of interdimensional Wi-Fi signal for a holiday streaming service, or even a DVD collection that would allow us to watch these clips of our Scrooges’ lives like movies. However, there were some aspects of our job that he and Santa said should remain rooted in “a simpler time” as they called it. Though by my memory, no time in history had ever been simple.

I’d spent the past few days diving deep into Jay Nichols’s life. These films helped break up the monotony of reading paperwork as I looked for patterns and connections that would help me understand what made this guy tick, and formulate initial plans for best approaches to his Scrooging experience.

Midori and Brandon would have done their own research and magical investigation with their powers in anticipation of our meeting today. I genuinely thought it was vital that we worked separately in intervals like this. It allowed each of us to bring unique contributions and perspectives to the table when we met up. As their leader, it was my duty to sift through everything and find the strongest threads for us to pull, the ones most likely to unravel Jay so we could weave him back together better than before.

“Frost?” A stream of light skewered the room as Bismaad entered from the door behind me. She’d been the one knocking. Today she wore a checkered print saree with teal embellishments that matched the teal hair ties at the ends of her long double braids.

“You missed breakfast, so I thought you might have fallen asleep in here again.” She settled in the seat next to me and gestured at the reel. “What is it about these screening rooms that mellows you out?”

I shrugged, sitting up straighter. “Moving pictures were my escape when I was on Earth. For a certain amount of time you can forget your reality and experience someone else’s. I guess no matter how many years solidify between adulthood and childhood, the things that matter most always resonate.”

“Which is why the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future have it way easier than we do,” Bismaad mused. “Being a Present Ghost is such a mega responsibility. We have to guide the Scrooges through their journeys and have way more magical powers to balance.”

She leaned back in her chair and diverted her eyes to the screen, tilting her chin toward it. “So what are we watching?”

“It’s a montage of every election Jay Nichols has ever lost,” I explained, eyes falling back to the flickering footage I’d watched so many times now. The reel had been playing on loop since yesterday “This guy has been running for elected positions since he was six. Not because he wanted power or a title, but because he is full of ideas and wants to make a difference. Unfortunately, for fourteen years, he never won a single race.”

I gestured at the screen as the scene shifted to thirteen-yearold Jay standing outside a middle school auditorium. He stood to one side of the double doors as students filed in. He passed out little pamphlets, talking to the kids about fixing water fountains and organizing lunch lines for better traffic flow. Meanwhile, a frizzy-haired girl on the other side of the doors handed out massive chocolate bars—the kind that only the biggest mansions would distribute on Halloween. The students were far more interested in what she was offering.

Jay glowered at her, but the girl was too busy handing out candy to notice.

The scene changed to Jay sitting in a leather chair across a desk from a balding man. The name plaque on the man’s desk read “Principal Flack.”

“It’s not fair that she won,” Jay protested. “She gave everyone free candy. I can’t compete with that. There should be a rule about candidates having a budget to campaign with.”

“Calm down, Mr. Nichols. It’s just a student government election. I’m sure you’ll find another club to occupy your time.”

The film reel moved on to high-school-age Jay standing frozen in a school hallway, listening to the PA system. Two friends waited next to him, faces worried.

“And this year’s vice president . . . Miguel Sanchez!”

Jay hung his head in defeat. One friend put a hand on his shoulder. “You gave it a good fight, man. But the dude is more popular. Nice, smart guys like you don’t stand a chance.”

I sighed and stood up, moving for the back of the screening room.

“It goes on like that for a while,” I told Bismaad as I turned off the projector and flicked on the house lights. “The first time Jay ever ran for something it was first grade class representative. That loss was the beginning of the rejection that would plague him throughout his life. Every year he tried to get into one or more positions where he could enact positive change and make a difference. He made attempts to be everything from Secretary Treasurer of his middle school choir to editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper. By my count, he lost fifty-six elections from elementary school through college.”

I took out the film reel, carefully loading it back in its case.

“I can’t believe he kept trying . . .” Bismaad said in amazement. “You’d think a person would break at some point and give up.”

I nodded. “Jay’s definitely more persistent than the average Scrooge.”

“So did he ever win an election?”

“His junior year of college,” I replied. “But if you ask me, I think that win actually broke him more than any of his losses.”

“Why do you say that?”

I checked my watch—CCD issued with rose gold rim, ornate ticking hands, and a glittering snowflake at the center. “Our Employee Training Seminar starts in ten minutes. We better go. I’ll tell you about it later.”

I placed the reels back in my bag and Bismaad followed me out. We strode across the skybridge connecting this tall tower of the CCD with the adjacent building. She and I filed into the lecture hall a minute before noon. It was already packed with Present Ghosts so we claimed seats at the back.

A teenage ghost in a jean jacket distributed the day’s handout to our row. We each took one and passed the stack on. I unfolded the desk attachment on my chair and unpacked my notebook, a candy cane shaped pen, and an aluminum can of Cocoa on the Gogo™, courtesy of the vending machine outside.

“Welcome, Ghosts of Christmas Present, to your first training seminar of the season,” a voice boomed from the front.

The tall woman had light brown skin and smooth black hair fashioned in a sharp bob. A Christmas tree brooch with a #9 on it was pinned to her mulberry lapel. The shine of her elaborate sparkly eye make-up was almost plain in comparison to the Olympic-bronze-medal glitter swept across her cheekbones. This sparkly physical trait was the mark of all the Senior Specters, the CCD’s management staff.

“For those of you who don’t know me, I am Specter Nine. I will be running your weekly classes this season to help you blend in with the modern era while you’re infiltrating your targets’ lives, and help you prep for the best possible Scrooging. Let’s begin.” She pivoted and wrote the title of today’s seminar on the chalkboard: “Modern Slang.”

I glanced down at the handout in front of me. It was a long list of words followed by their definitions.

“We shall start with term number one used in a sentence,” said Specter Nine. “Say it with me: That outfit is fire.”

Everyone in the room repeated the phrase in a monotone.

“That outfit is fire.”

“And those are the proper and improper uses of the word ‘snatched’,” Specter Nine said, underlining the term on the chalkboard.

A tiny Santa suddenly popped out from the cuckoo clock on the left wall and began dancing as holiday music played.

Specter Nine lowered her chalk. “Your homework for the week is to use each new word in a sentence. Extra credit if you can list five examples of people ‘throwing shade’ at each other. Dismissed.”

The sounds of rustling papers and zipping bags filled the room as everyone packed up. These seminars were long but extremely helpful. If not for them, most of us would stick out like sore thumbs on Earth. Our Senior Specter instructors taught us not only about modern Earth culture, but also shaped us into modern beings. The majority of the girl I was in the early twentieth century had been left behind long ago; I was a contemporary, independent ghost of the twenty-first century and proud of it.