Christmas Ghosts - Fiction River Read online

  Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith

  Series Editors

  Kristine Grayson

  Editor

  Copyright Information

  Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts

  Copyright © 2013 WMG Publishing

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 WMG Publishing

  Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright © Talisalex/Dreamstime

  “Foreword: A Time for Romance and Oh, So Much More” Copyright © 2013 by Dean Wesley Smith

  “Introduction: Umbrellas, Spirits, and Holiday Cheer” Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “The Farewell Gift” Copyright © 2013 by Louise Marley

  “A Ghost of Time” Copyright © 2013 by Dean Wesley Smith

  “Christmas, Interrupted” Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Silverthorne

  “The Ghost of Willow’s Past” Copyright © 2013 by M.L. Buchman

  “Toasted” Copyright © 2013 by Mary Jo Putney

  “Chains” Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Miss Merriweather’s Christmas Follies” Copyright © 2013 by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “A Countess for Christmas” Copyright © 2013 by Anthea Lawson

  Smashwords Edition

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Table of Contents

  Foreword: A Time for Romance and Oh, So Much More

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Introduction: Umbrellas, Spirits, and Holiday Cheer

  Kristine Grayson

  The Farewell Gift

  Louise Marley

  A Ghost of Time

  Dean Wesley Smith

  Christmas, Interrupted

  Lisa Silverthorne

  The Ghost of Willow’s Past

  M.L. Buchman

  Toasted

  Mary Jo Putney

  Chains

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Miss Merriweather’s Christmas Follies

  Carole Nelson Douglas

  A Countess for Christmas

  Anthea Lawson

  Acknowledgements

  About the Editor

  Copyright Information

  Foreword

  A Time for Romance and Oh, So Much More

  Dean Wesley Smith

  This feels very odd to be writing this introduction to Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts for a couple of reasons. First, it seems almost impossible that we are already finishing up with the fourth volume. To me it was only yesterday we were fooling around making a Kickstarter video to see if anyone was interested in a multi-genre anthology series.

  Now bam, here we are finishing up #4, since these introductions and forwards are always the last two things to be written for a volume. I just edited a time travel volume called Fiction River: Time Streams for #3. I am beginning to understand how time can pass very quickly with these books. I am fairly certain I just put those stories together and wrote the introduction just this week.

  Time is a very fluid thing around the Fiction River offices.

  Second, for me it feels very, very odd to be writing a foreword to (in essence) a romance volume. Granted, every story in this book has ghosts of one sort or another. So it really is a paranormal volume.

  And there are some fantastic science fiction and mystery stories in this book as well. And all are set in one way or another around Christmas.

  But still, with all the different types of stories, Christmas Ghosts is a romance volume. So why does that make me feel very odd? Mostly because I am not known as a romance writer, even though I have written a number of romance novels and many romance short stories. But under this name I tend to be known for Men in Black or for Star Trek books and comics or for editing Pulphouse Magazine or for blogging about writing.

  But as one of the executive editors of this series, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (the other executive editor) wanted me to write this foreword. And she wanted me to do this because (even though I have a reputation for writing in other genres) she knows I love good romance stories.

  And I have to be honest right here. She is right. I do love a good romance story. On top of that, many, many of my own stories contain romantic elements and happy endings, which true romance requires.

  So, simply put, I am a non-traditional romance reader and writer, so Kris thought I might be able to talk with you science fiction or fantasy or mystery readers who were hesitant to pick up a book with romance stories in it. Well, trust me when I say you are in for a great ride across many genres in this volume.

  In this book there are great ghost stories, great mystery stories, great science fiction stories, and even a couple time travel stories. And yes, all of them are also romance stories. But trust me, you non-traditional romance readers won’t notice that much except when you get to the end of a story and you feel good about what you just read and a little misty-eyed. That will be the romance part kicking in.

  So put your feet up, get the fire started, a cup of eggnog beside you, turn the Christmas tree lights on, and sit back to enjoy some really wonderful Christmas ghost stories.

  And now I have to wrap this up to take a deep breath before Fiction River: Hex in the City needs a forward. More than likely, because of how messed up time seems to be around the Fiction River offices, I will need to write that tomorrow.

  —Dean Wesley Smith

  Lincoln City, Oregon

  May 28, 2013

  Introduction

  Umbrellas, Spirits, and Holiday Cheer

  Kristine Grayson

  I don’t like most Victorian traditions, but I adore one: The Christmas Ghost story, or as one website calls it, the Yuletide Spirit Story. (Really?) Twenty-six years ago, when I and my writer friends all lived far away from our families and had no money at all, we celebrated Christmas by reading ghost stories to each other on Christmas Eve. We ate well, imbibed a bit, and settled around a fire for snacks and stories. Sometimes the stories were marvelous; sometimes they were laughingly bad. But they made us all feel connected to a time-honored tradition, one that had been around a lot longer than we had.

  We got older. We got married (some of us to each other), and moved away. Children entered the picture, and suddenly the holidays became about family, presents, and Santa instead of Christmas cookies, eggnog, and stories told around a fire.

  As you can tell, I miss those Christmases. I do not miss the poverty in which we all lived, but I do miss the creativity.

  So, when we discussed doing a holiday version of Fiction River, I volunteered immediately with Christmas ghost stories. I also knew I would edit this anthology in my Kristine Grayson incarnation, because romance readers buy many Christmas-related novels and anthologies. We wanted Fiction River to encompass all genres, so why not go for the ultimate umbrella genre itself?

  For those of you who don’t read a lot of romance, let me explain that term. Romance is what we in the trade call an umbrella genre. It encompasses all other genres. Romantic suspense novels are mysteries with a romance. Paranormal romances are fantasy with a romance. Futuristic romances are science fiction with a romance, and so on.

  There are three requirements that make a story into a romance. First, the story must be about a couple in love. Second, that story must have a happy ending. Third, and most important, the story must have emotion.

  You ha
ve in your hands eight happy endings. Some of you who’ve traveled here from other genres now wonder why I went and spoiled all the endings for you. Romance readers are smiling. Because romance isn’t about the ending. It’s about the journey.

  There are as many romance stories as there are couples. Ask any happily married couple how they met, and you’ll hear the origin story of the relationship, an origin story unlike any other you’ll ever hear. Falling in love is personal, and it’s different, even if one of the parties has been in love before.

  I have written and published in every fiction genre except military fiction (at least that I can think of), and let me tell you this: Contrary to popular opinion, romance is the hardest genre to write. When I teach romance courses, I compare romance writing to writing poetry. Most fiction writers write the equivalent of free verse—anything goes. But romance writers write sonnets. They follow strict rules, and produce wonderful stories.

  Ask any professional writer to write a romance and that writer will fail on the first few attempts. I was very careful in the writers I chose for this anthology. All of them have successfully written romance before. I wanted to make sure they could handle two more rules: Christmas and a ghost.

  I let them pick their subgenre. All of the stories here are paranormal romances because the stories have ghosts in them. But sometimes the ghost is important, and sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the paranormal element is slight, and sometimes it’s the focus of the story.

  For her subgenre, Louise Marley chose historical. “The Farewell Gift” takes place just after World War I. That war is called the first modern war, and its devastation was profound. She touches on that and so much more in this sweet story of survivors after a dark time.

  Dean Wesley Smith’s subgenre is time travel. Time travel romances had their heyday in the 1980s, although they continue even to this day. Dean adores time travel, which is why he edited Fiction River’s third volume, Time Streams. He sees the possibilities of love throughout the ages when he looks at all of time, and he communicates that here.

  Time travel has a place in Lisa Silverthorne’s “Christmas, Interrupted,” but she also dabbles in a bit of romantic suspense as well. Her story, full of what-might-have-beens, also conveys a strong sense of holiday joy.

  M.L. Buchman writes military romance which is, for those of you who don’t know, one of the most popular subgenres of romance. He has written a stand-alone gentle contemporary in his Night Stalkers series, which features more than one romance and the possibility for more than one happy ending.

  When I asked Mary Jo Putney to contribute a story to the anthology, I thought she would probably write a Regency. She’s written some of the classics in that romance subgenre. Instead, she wrote a modern story set in her popular Guardians universe.

  “Toasted” straddles the place that confounds critics: Is it urban fantasy? Is it paranormal romance? It’s both, really, although the ending, in my opinion, places it solidly in the romance camp. Even knowing where the story would end up, I had no idea how we would get there, and found myself turning pages quickly. Just because you know how the couple will end up doesn’t mean you know what will happen to the other characters. What happens here is one of the best things about this wonderful little tale.

  I decided I would wait to write my own story until I knew what subgenre everyone else wrote in. Initially, I had thought of a Grayson story. (In one of his incarnations, Darius, the hero of Completely Smitten, is the Ghost of Christmas Present, a fact mentioned in passing.) I soon realized that Grayson’s brand of weird humor doesn’t quite fit here.

  So I moved to my romantic suspense pen name, Kristine Dexter. But Dexter’s stories don’t have a whiff of the supernatural. “Chains” ended up with a much greater supernatural element than I had initially planned. I finally decided the name belonged under Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I write romance under that name, often in the short form, and sell it to unlikely places like Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. (Shhhh. Don’t tell them.) Even so, I still think of this one as romantic suspense.

  Carole Nelson Douglas and I share a gene for genre unpredictability. Neither of us has yet found a genre that we can adhere to one-hundred-percent. Carole’s story, “Miss Merriweather’s Christmas Follies,” starts like urban fantasy, then crosses into Regency romance without blinking an eye.

  I was so delighted to get Carole’s story, because I knew that I would have at least one Regency romance in the volume. Regency is the most difficult romance subgenre for non-romance readers to understand. Carole has one of her characters make the transition from now to the world of the Regency, and in doing so, she adeptly explains how most readers feel when they make that crossing.

  If you’ve never read Regency before, read Carole’s story before you read the final story in the volume, “A Countess For Christmas,” by Anthea Lawson. Anthea wrote a perfect Christmas Regency, which is (believe it or not) a subgenre of a subgenre.

  Regency fans will find two treats in this volume: Anthea’s traditional story and Carole’s exploration of the quirks of the genre. Non-Regency readers have an opportunity to enter one of the biggest selling subgenres of romance with no real explanation necessary.

  In many ways, I believe that Christmas Ghosts has something for all readers. Romance readers will find traditional stories in several subgenres. Non-romance readers will find more than enough suspense and fantasy to make them happy. Those who celebrate Christmas will find some holiday cheer, and the rest of you who find Christmas to be a burden you need to put up with will find some sympathy here.

  It’s my sincerest hope that you all will enjoy the Victorian Christmas ghost story tradition as much as I do. And even though I’m writing this introduction in May, let me be the first to wish you the very best of the season.

  —Kristine Grayson

  Lincoln City, Oregon

  May 28, 2013

  Introduction to “The Farewell Gift”

  Louise Marley writes wonderful science fiction and fantasy. Her historical fantasies based on classical music legends (most recently The Brahms Deception) have truly captivated me. Louise, a former concert and opera singer, brings real depth to her writing. I haven’t yet read her latest Marley novel, The Glass Butterfly, but I plan to shortly. Like so many of us that write science fiction and fantasy, Louise has a secret identity. It’s Cate Campbell, who writes historical fiction.

  For Christmas Ghosts, Louise takes us to the time period she has explored most in her Cate Campbell novels (Benedict Hall appeared in May). She writes that “The Farewell Gift” comes from her “fascination with World War 1 and its aftermath, Western stories and traditions, and love for all ghost stories, real and imagined.”

  “The Farewell Gift” showcases Louise’s strengths: a marvelous sense of place, a good story, and touching relationships. It’s the perfect place to start this volume of Fiction River.

  The Farewell Gift

  Louise Marley

  Madeleine braced her arms on the stall gate to watch Big Mike dip his muzzle into the bucket of mash. His long eyelashes, starry with melted snowflakes, fluttered with appreciation as he chewed.

  Holland, drifting behind Madeleine, gave a pale chuckle. “Nice manners. Such a big horse.”

  Madeleine sighed. “Go away, Holland.”

  “Leave you alone out here?”

  “I am alone out here.” She lifted her head, and glanced around the barn. The goats were snuggled into their bed of straw. She had given Big Mike his rubdown, and the ragged towel was drying on its hook beside the door to the feed room. The other Belgian put his nose over his stall gate and whuffed, asking for his own share of mash.

  “Sorry, Theo,” Madeleine said. “Big Mike had to pull the wagon all the way to town and back. He earned it.” Theo stamped his hooves and shook his mane in protest. Madeleine said, “Okay, okay.” She dug a wrinkled winter apple from her pocket, and fed it to him, savoring the softness of his thick lips against her palm. She stood for a moment, letting
Theo—short for Theodore, named by Holland for the president he had admired most—nose her pockets in a futile search for more. She put her arms around his head, and laid her cheek against his wide, warm one, breathing in the comforting smells of good horseflesh, clean straw, the peppery tang of goat. Hildy, the shepherd, snuffled in the corners in search of any rats she might have missed the day before. The hens in their coop clucked and chirped as they settled in for the night.

  “Getting dark,” Holland whispered behind her.

  “I know.” She released Theo, and stepped back. She buttoned her overlarge coat, a heavy one that had belonged to her father, and felt the weight of the Peacemaker dragging at her pocket. She had come across it by accident, in a drawer in the feed room. She was used to the Springfield bolt-action rifle and the Winchester shotgun, but they were too bulky when she had buckets and sacks to move. The Colt pistol was easy to lug around, but it was heavy, and that made it hard to aim. If she ever had to use it, she would need something to brace it on.

  She pushed the barn door open, and stepped out into the cold with Hildy at her heels. She closed the door, carefully hanging the weighted latch so the rising wind couldn’t blow it open. “Come on, Hildegard. Let’s make a dash for it.”

  Hildy had been named by Holland, too. He had acquired her at a stock sale in Missoula five years before, when dogs like Hildy were still called German shepherds. They were just shepherds now that all things German were out of favor. A lot of the dogs had disappeared. People sometimes scowled at Hildy riding in the back of the wagon, as if her very existence was treason.

  Madeleine sniffed and tossed her head at that. She had made her war sacrifice. Nobody could doubt her patriotism. Holland pointed out that no one dared accuse her to her face, but that didn’t help much. They whispered so loudly behind her back she could hear them all the way out to the ranch, and not just about Hildy. Most people thought she should sell up and move. They didn’t say that to her face, either.