Flash Fiction - Christmas 2023 (Patreon)

Hi, all!

In honor of IronWatchdog hitting his magical goal for the Extra Life charity, I am delivering to you, as promised, this year's flash fiction. This story takes place between Book 6 (which released yesterday on Amazon!) and Book 7.

This Christmas

Peyton opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, her fingers still tightly wrapped around the stuffed dog she clutched like a talisman against her chest. With a sigh, she slid free of her bed and moved to the window to look outside. It had snowed last night, leaving a fresh blanket of powder across the lawn. The neighborhood was eerily silent, but she did see some activity across the street. Billy Jenson from school was leaping around in his flannel pajamas, holding what looked like a foam sword over his head. He was busy fighting off his older brother, who had a similar blade.

Peyton grabbed the curtains and slid them shut. That was enough of that. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and just stared at the wall for a few minutes, wondering if she should even bother going downstairs. Her stomach rumbled, making the decision for her.

"Fine," she muttered. She opened the door to her bedroom and was immediatly assaulted by the smell of pancakes and coffee. Stunned, she closed her eyes and inhaled the aroma, letting it melt against the back of her throat. When was the last time her mom had cooked?

Curious, she walked past her older sister's bedroom door and down the stairs. In the kitchen, her mother hummed a Christmas tune while scraping pancakes off the electric grill. Her mom looked up and smiled at the sight of Peyton.

"There she is!" Mom looked into the living room, which Peyton couldn't see yet. "Peyton's up, we can start opening presents soon!"

Her father whooped from the living room. Peyton took a tentative step down the stairs, her eyes never leaving her mother.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Cooking breakfast." Her mom slid a pancake off the griddle and flipped it. "It's Christmas morning!"

"It is." Hesitant, Peyton came down the stairs and walked into the kitchen where her mom gave her a hug. "Did you...um...are you okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Mom bent over to kiss Peyton's head. "Can you take this to your father?" She handed Peyton a cup of coffee.

"I guess?" Curiosity mingled with hope as she walked into the living room to see a Christmas tree adorned with ornaments, shining like a beacon against the beige walls of their house. Beneath it, presents had been stacked past its lower branches.

Down on the floor, her father looked up from a train set. He held up a toy locomotive, then set it back on the tracks. It puffed smoke as it chugged along the tracks and circled behind the tree where it vanished.

"Where did you get that train?" she asked.

"We've had it for awhile," he said, standing up to take the coffee from her. He sipped from the mug and sighed. "I used to get it out every year, actually. I don't know why I stopped."

"Seriously?" Peyton stared at her father in exasperation then looked around the room. "When did you put all this up? Was it after I went to bed?"

"Of course not, Bean." Her father patted her on the head, using her nickname. She couldn't remember the last time he'd used it. "We put it up after Thanksgiving."

No, you didn't. Peyton narrowed her eyes, but didn't voice the thought out loud. "What year is it?" she asked.

"What a silly question." Dad ruffled her hair and wandered out toward the kitchen. There was a light slapping sound, followed by her mother giggling. Through the doorway, she caught a brief glimpse of her parents kissing.

"What the hell?" Peyton stepped sideways to get a better view, but tripped over a present. She stumbled and was caught at the last moment by a sturdy hand that closed around her wrist. Eyes wide with shock, she looked up at the figure sitting on the couch, huddled up with a sketchpad in her lap.

"Careful, Bean." Reagan scowled at their parents through the doorway. "Gross."

Peyton stepped back in shock, tripping once more over a box and dropping her dog. "You're...you..."

"You act like you've seen a ghost." Reagan set down her sketchpad. "What's up?"

Peyton wasn't sure how to respond. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears, but she knew better. No matter how she felt in this moment, something was horribly wrong.

"You're dead," Peyton whispered, afraid to voice the truth out loud.

"Only a little bit." Reagan held her fingers pinched together and smirked. "Okay, maybe a lot a bit."

"But how...what..." Peyton looked over her shoulder toward the kitchen. "Is this real?"

"Yes and no." Reagan stood and brushed some eraser shavings from her lap. Her dark curls draped across her shoulders like a blanket. "I'm still dead, I'm afraid. And this whole thing is a setup. I came to check on you, to see how everyone is doing. It's been a year, after all."

"Miserable," Peyton replied. She didn't know how to properly encapsulate how grief had torn through her family like a sharpened blade, to describe how she had somehow become a ghost to her parents, often ignored and forgotten. Ever since her sister had died, that was all they could focus on. They hadn't even decorated the house for Christmas this year, other than tossing a wreath on the front door.

"Yeah, I gathered. I already checked in on mom and dad, those two are quite the mess." Reagan held a hand out for Peyton to take. "Did you know they're considering a divorce?"

Peyton felt a chill rush through her body. "I did," she whispered. She had overheard the conversation back in October when her parents forgot that she had come home already from Trick-or-treating. It was a dark memory that she kept tucked in the corner of her mind, because she was worried that when her parents split, they would fight over who had to take her.

"Hey, relax." Reagan turned to look at the Christmas tree. "Do you want to open some presents?"

"Not really." Peyton knelt down to pick up her dog. "It's not like any of them are real."

"Mmhmm." Reagan looked over her shoulder. "You're pretty smart for an eight year old. Mom and Dad were so happy to see me that neither of them questioned any of it. But you're different, aren't you?"

Peyton fiddled with her dog, biting her lip to hold words back.

Reagan sighed. "Okay, let's speed this up a bit.  Tell me what's really on your mind." She snapped her fingers and Peyton felt something shift in her head.

"I hate you," she said, clutching her dog to her chest. "For dying," she clarified. Peyton felt selfish for voicing the words aloud, her face burning in shame. The last year of her life had been hell. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Don't be." Reagan smiled. "And you don't really hate me."

"But I do."

"No." Reagan looked out toward the kitchen. "They're the ones you're actually mad at. To you, they're just Mom and Dad, but to the rest of the world, they're people. Just a pair of broken people who weren't here for you when you needed them most."

"I...uh..." Peyton sniffed, tears streaming down her face. She stared at Reagan for several long moments, afraid to speak. "That's what our therapist said."

"The one they stopped going to." Reagan picked up a present and shook it. "Back in February."

"It cost too much." Peyton remembered the arguments. Dad had been working overtime to catch up on missed bills, and the funding for grief therapy had run out, or something similar.  Most of those sessions had involved a lot of crying.

"Yeah, well, they're going back. I know a guy who's gonna make a few calls, arrange to take care of the whole thing."

"You can't just do that." Peyton shook her head. "This is a dream. You're not allowed to get my hopes up."

"Ah, but this is Christmas, the day of miracles!" Reagan opened up the present and pulled out a puppy. "Dream dogs are great, they never ruin your shoes or poop on the carpet!"

Peyton stared at the small pug that Reagan was holding. "I want to believe," she said.  "But i don't want to get my hopes up."

"That's fair." Reagan set the dog down. "I get it. The Dreamscape is kind of weird like that."

"Dreamscape?"

"Yeppers." Reagan snapped her fingers and the walls melted away, the home replaced with a massive theme park. "This is technically a dream."

"Oh. I thought maybe it was...heaven."

Reagan made a face. "No, not quite."

"But you are in heaven, right?" Peyton sniffled. "You didn't really believe in heaven."

"Also true. I, um, can't really tell you about where I ended up."

"Why not?"

Reagan blanched. "Would you believe me that it's a rule?"

"That makes sense."

"Good." Reagan smiled again. "You've got a whole day with me. Whether you believe this is real or not, we can still have plenty of fun! And look!" She pointed at a nearby ride. "No lines!"

Peyton dared to let a smile slip free. Since it really was a dream, why not let loose a little?

---

Hours later, Peyton flopped down on a grassy hill covered in flowers. She groaned and held her stomach, trying hard not to vomit.

"I've never seen anybody eat three orders of nachos in a row." Reagan sat nearby, plucking at the leaves of a flower.

"If this is a dream, why does my stomach hurt so bad?"

Reagan giggled. "Want me to fix it for you?"

Peyton nodded. Reagan snapped her fingers, and Peyton let out a belch of rainbow fog which sparkled like stars in the afternoon light. She sighed and rubbed her stomach, thinking about all the rides they had gone on together. Even it this was just a dream, it was a good memory, one that she desperately wanted to hold on to. There was just one problem.

"You're not really my sister, are you?"

Reagan froze, the smile on her face snapping into place. "Now what would make you say that?"

"You shouted 'Oh, fudge!' on the roller coaster." Peyton frowned. "My sister swore a lot. My parents told her she could because she'd earned it. She told me once that she was going to cram a lifetime of swear words in before she died."

"Stupid fudging hat," Reagan muttered. "I didn't think it would censor me in here. I guess it's because you're only eight."

"So you're not Reagan after all." Peyton closed her eyes in disappointment. "Even my dreams are broken. It couldn't even let me pretend this was real."

"Oh, I'm real. That's a hundred percent true." Reagan picked up another flower and fiddled with it.

"Who are you, then?"

Reagan paused. "A friend of your sister's."

"From the hospital?"

The imposter nodded. "I met her there. I was with her at the end."

"Convenient." Peyton rolled her eyes in a manner that only a child could. "This dream is stupid. This is what I get for eating that box of thin mints I found from last year right before bed."

"That's what that black stuff is." Reagan frowned. "You're a mouth breather, at night, by the way. You need to brush your teeth before bed. And while this is a dream, I need to remind you that I'm very real and actually here."

"Uh huh, sure." Peyton stared at her feet. "So why are you here, then?"

"It's what your sister wanted for Christmas." Reagan looked uncomfortable. "She wrote a letter to Santa the year she died."

"My sister didn't believe in Santa."

"But she believed in him more than...the big man." Reagan coughed. "She had one last Christmas wish and technically only half of it was fulfilled. The other half is going to take some time. She wanted someone to watch over your family and help them find peace once she was gone."

"Sounds like her." A tear rolled down Peyton's cheek. She flicked it away. "So you're one of the three ghosts of Christmas. Got it."

"Wrong again. Um...do you want me to look like someone else? I feel like a major b-word looking like your sister right now."

"Nah." Peyton looked up at the imposter. "It's nice to see her this way, even if it's not you. I will say you've got shit timing, though."

"Oh, sure, the child can swear, but I can't." Reagan reached over her head and tugged at something Peyton couldn't see. "Sorry, force of habit. Why is my timing so bad?"

"My family is falling apart. I haven't had a real conversation with my parents since Reagan died. They've become ghosts of themselves. My school counselor has been keeping extra snacks in her office just to make sure I remember to eat. We never do anything any more. I'm half expecting to go downstairs in the morning and discover that they forgot to get me anything. If you're supposed to bring us peace, why did you wait for so long? Why let us be so miserable?"

Reagan nodded sadly. "That pain you and your parents are going through needed to be felt. If I had come along a month after your sister's death, it would have been like suturing an infected wound. Trust me, I wanted to come sooner, but Christmas magic is weird."

"So you're going to fix me? And my family?" Peyton snorted. "I don't think that's possible in a single night."

"You'd be surprised what is possible in a single night." Reagan smirked, then laid back on the grass. "You're way smarter than your parents, by the way. They never caught on."

"Oh, I bet. How long did my mom cry?"

"Cumulatively? Hours. She kept bursting into tears. Your dad, too." Reagan looked over at Peyton. "But I suppose none of this will matter to you, right? Because you know it's not real."

"For a hallucination, you're pretty smart." Peyton picked at the dirt under her feet. It peeled away like wet cardboard. "But I guess you would be. You're just my brain, after all. And expired thin mints."

Reagan chuckled. "I can't pull one over on you. If I can prove this is all real, do I get a pass? Will you believe me then?"

"Sure. But good luck to you." Peyton stood and brushed the dirt off her legs. "I think I'm ready to wake up now."

"I guess that's fair." The imposter stood and brushed herself off. "So here are a few nuggets I want to drop on you before I leave. Your sister loved you. Heaven is real. And she probably went there."

"Probably?" Peyton stared at the imposter in shock. "What an ass thing to say!"

"The afterlife is complicated. There are a lot of places she could have ended up, I have no way of verifying where she went." Reagan sighed. "But what I can tell you is that I'll be back. Every Christmas Eve, on the date of your sister's death, I'll come along to check on you. And if I don't, someone else will. Your family has mourned long enough, it's time for the real healing to begin."

"That sounds lovely." Peyton closed her eyes. "I want to believe," she whispered.

"Then believe in me." A finger bopped Peyton on the nose. "My real name is Lily, by the way."

"I don't care," whispered Peyton. "You're not real to me."

"Not yet." Lily's voice became a whisper of its own. "But I will be."

---

Peyton opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, her fingers still tightly wrapped around the stuffed dog she clutched like a talisman against her chest. With a sigh, she slid free of her bed and moved to the window to look outside. It had snowed last night, leaving a fresh blanket of powder across the lawn. The neighborhood was eerily silent, but she did see some activity across the street. Billy Jenson from school was leaping around in his flannel pajamas, holding what looked like a foam sword over his head. He was busy fighting off his older brother, who had a similar blade.

"Ah, okay. My dream is suddenly real. I'm all better now." Peyton grabbed the curtains and slid them shut. "Stupid dream," she muttered. 

Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and just stared at the wall for a few minutes, wondering if she should even bother going downstairs. Her stomach rumbled, making the decision for her.

"Oh, wow, Christmas miracle," she muttered. When she opened the door of her room, she inhaled deeply through her nose. The hallway smelled like nothing. "Where are my fucking pancakes, Lily?"

Stepping into the hall, she stared briefly at her sister's bedroom door. She knew if she walked inside, it would be like a shrine, frozen for eternity the way her sister had left it. The last time she had gone inside was for her sister's birthday a few months ago, but she couldn't bear to stay longer than a few seconds.

Down at the bottom of the stairs, she saw her parents sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space. Her father looked up at her and tried to smile.

"Good morning," he said. "Um, right." He looked at his wife, who turned in her chair to look at Peyton.

"Would you like some Eggos?" she asked.

"We don't have Eggos." Peyton would know, because she made her breakfast most mornings.

"Oh, we do. I, um, bought them yesterday at the grocery store." A befuddled look crossed her mother's face.

"You didn't go grocery shopping." Peyton felt that was a lot safer to say than 'you drank a box of wine and cried' instead.

"Then where did all this food come from?" Her mom opened the fridge to reveal it was packed with snacks and a couple of premade meals. Peyton stared in awe as her mother opened the freezer and pulled out a box of Eggos. "There's only a couple left, how many did you eat yesterday?"

"I...didn't eat..." She stepped into the kitchen and froze. Out in the living room, the tree stood against the wall, covered lightly in ornaments. "When did you do that?" she asked.

"That was me. I couldn't sleep last night, so I put it up." Her father had a queer look as well, like he wasn't entirely sure he was telling the truth. But with the evidence in front of him, how could he question it? A small train sat motionless beneath the branches, sparsely surrounded by presents. "I, uh, had an epiphany last night. The therapist told us the first anniversary would be the hardest, but..." He looked up at his wife.

"Your dad and I have been talking this morning." Only now could Peyton see the rings under her mother's eyes. "We haven't been trying hard enough. For you or ourselves."

"It's like we've been drowning," her father added, then looked at Peyton. "And this whole time, you've been forced to swim on your own."

"We're going to do better." Her mom put the Eggos in the toaster. "For you and for each other."

"Oh." Peyton wasn't sure what to say. As if in a trance, she sat with her parents and ate breakfast quietly, then walked out into the living room and stared at the tree. Her thoughts whirred suspiciously, half expecting to learn that she was still sleeping and this was yet another dream. But as the morning progressed and she opened her gifts, she came to a different realization.

Her subconscious had picked up on all of this while she had been in a world of her own. There was no magic here, just cold logic processing in the background of her brain. Everything from her dream had just been her brain's way of catching her up.

Once she was done opening presents, she spotted one more under the tree. She knelt down to see who it was for, and frowned. Looking up at her mom, she cleared her throat and shook the package.

"What is this doing here?" she asked. It was the present she had purchased for Reagan last year, but never got the chance to to give her. They were colored pencils, wrapped tightly in paper with a smiling Santa on them.

"I thought...this way, it's like she's still here, just a little."

"Oh." That actually made a lot of sense. "Is it okay if I take them upstairs for her?

Her mother nodded, then teared up and excused herself, followed shortly by her husband. Peyton frowned and fiddled with the package before rising and walking up the stairs. Standing outside her sister's room, she contemplated the knob for almost five minutes before pushing the door open. Holding her breath, she walked across the room to her sister's desk, then set the package down in the middle. Turning to leave, she saw the wrapped package on her sister's bed.

"What?" It was a small box, wrapped in red and black paper. Had her parents put it here? She lifted the dangling tag to inspect it, her eyes suddenly wide.

For Peyton

From: Lily

See you next Christmas.

P.S. Please brush your teeth next time. And leave some cookies out for Santa's helpers.

Rushing back to her room, she crawled into bed and tore into the package. Pulling the gift out of the box, a single scrap of paper fluttered free and landed face up on the bed. It had a single word.

Believe?

The little girl was crying so hard now that all she could do was nod. For the first time in exactly a year, she felt like everything was going to be okay.

---

Merry Christmas, everyone!