Christmas Ball

by Ludima Gus Burton

At last, here's a sweet, romantic Christmas paranormal anthology! Each story has its unique ghost and psychic experience where holiday traditions are kept alive and a love story warms your heart. And the most delightful ghost of all, Mary Blake's Christmas rubber ball, connects the stories to give you a read that will leave you longing for more.

ISBN 1-59431-650-3 Romance /Christmas / Anthology

Cover Art by Maggie Dix



Prologue



Mabs Brandon studied the Danbury County History spread open on her desk.

It was true.

Three members of her family within the last fifty years had purchased three Blake houses.

Her grandmother had bought the historic Blake Manor built in 1853 on Blaze Road by Joshua Blake. Her cousin Sarah’s house located outside of Hammomd was a former Blake house. And was it coincidence that her own family house in Brewster was built by Aaron Blake, the son of Joshua Blake?

Here were the four accounts of how the long dead Blakes had manifested themselves to each of the present day owners. Family legend was that the real “ghost” was an illusive, phantom red rubber ball given to the first Mary Blake as a child. It appeared and disappeared through the Christmas love stories.

That evening, late, Mabs made herself comfortable in the four-poster bed with only a reading lamp on the bedside table. Her computer was dark. The corners of the room were in deep shadow. Silence enveloped her family house in Brewster. The setting was perfect for reading the first of the family ghost stories.



Part I

The Christmas Ball



Abigail Henderson’s Experiences in Brewster

Chapter 1

At six o’clock Abigail Henderson opened the kitchen door to her dark house.

Her heart almost stopped beating. She could only stare. Where were her pristine white appliances? Where was the maple dinette set she had proudly purchased two years ago?

Before her startled eyes, this kitchen glowed with the soft light from a hanging brass oil lamp. At her right, a bright flame shone through the grates of the big black kitchen stove. On it a polished-copper tea kettle hissed a steady stream of steam.

By the window the oak rocker with its soft blue cushions, was still rocking. Across the braided oval rug her daughter’s red ball rolled toward Abigail.

She reached down to pick it up...and grasped only air.

At that moment, the old fashioned kitchen scene vanished before her eyes. Darkness surrounded her.

With a trembling hand Abigail reached around the door jamb and flicked on the electric light switch, flooding the room with glaring light. She stepped in and leaned her back against the closed door. Her knees suddenly felt like cooked noodles and threatened to collapse.

What had she just seen? She must be dreaming or something.

This was her kitchen. The white electric stove on her right. The dinette set in front of the windows with its red cushions. No light fixture hung from the ceiling. To her left was the two-door refrigerator. A modern, efficient room. Her kitchen had looked this way for the five years they had lived in this large Victorian house in the small village of Brewster.

The room had been empty when they moved in. Then, why had she seen it as it might have looked when the house was built around 1860?

Abigail shook her head. She was tired, dead on her feet. Since Gary and she had separated two months ago, she hadn’t been able to sleep. No wonder she was seeing things that weren’t there.

Still ...surely she had seen and tried to pick up her daughter Mary’s ball, her favorite one. The ball had appeared under the Christmas tree last year. A gift no one admitted giving to Mary. Everyone, finally, laughingly, gave the credit to Santa—who else?

Abigail put on her enamel kettle to make a pot of tea. She frowned. Wait—she remembered that the ball was in the box of Christmas decorations she had mailed to be part of Mary’s first Christmas away from her. How could it be here if it were there? Gary and her precious 5-year-old Mary had left for Connecticut three days ago.

While she waited for the water to boil, she thought again of the trial separation that had turned difficult and probably permanent. How could two people who had been so in love with each other become cold and hateful?

The breakup had started three months ago.

Gary had rashly promised Mary that the Birthday Fairy would bring her a pink pedal car, one she could drive herself.

As though it were yesterday, Abigail remembered her reaction on hearing his words.

“An expensive pedal car! We can’t get her one,” she had said later. “The Birthday Fairy can’t bring a car.”

That was Gary, believing in birthday fairies and Santa Claus and leprechauns while she juggled the finances to make these promises come true. She was the one who had to make excuses for not paying the bills on time. She was the one who humiliated herself asking his parents for the money to pay the mortgage. Never Gary. Oh, no, Gary was not one to deal with domestic problems.

Two months too late Abigail realized she hadn’t been fair. Gary worked as hard as he could, going on TV service calls, missing his supper. And he had always been so loving. His touch and his caresses were all a wife could desire from a husband and lover. He just didn’t have any money sense, and she should have accepted this one shortcoming.

When he went to work in the Appliance Department in the Underwood Store, she became jealous and distrustful. All because she saw a newspaper picture of the beautiful Mrs. Underwood, the woman training her husband Gary on the computer.

Numerous arguments about his overtime had turned ugly. She even accused him of being unfaithful. Gary’s tight-lipped refusal to defend himself made her feel certain this was true. After a bitter verbal fight she asked him to leave.

Counseling her that her request for an immediate divorce was premature, the lawyer suggested a trial separation of six months.

When Gary’s parents asked to have Mary for two weeks at Christmas, Abigail agreed. She didn’t tell them of the separation or that she would be spending Christmas alone in Brewster.

Abigail drank her tea. Thoughts of her failed marriage took precedence over attempts to explain the strange kitchen vision. It would never happen again.