A Midwinter Fantasy Read online

  A MIDWINTER FANTASY

  LEANNA RENEE HIEBER

  “Gripping and with an on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense . . . this book is perfect for fans of the paranormal who enjoy a Gothic setting.”

  —ParaNormal Romance Reviews on

  The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker

  “The romance in this book is just swoon worthy . . . The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker is a book not to be missed. It is adorable, utterly romantic and while the first book in the series made my favorites list of 2009, Leanna Renee Hieber wrote a second book that I enjoyed even more.”

  —Smexy Books

  L. J. MCDONALD

  “Lovers of Stardust and The Princess Bride rejoice! A must for every Fantasy library!”

  —Barbara Vey, Publishers Weekly blogger on

  The Battle Sylph

  “A stunningly original world . . . An amazing start to what promises to be a truly engaging series!”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Battle Sylph

  HELEN SCOTT TAYLOR

  “This book is so well written that it’s hard to believe it’s Taylor’s first novel, as well as the first in a promising series of contemporary fantasy romances.”

  —Booklist, Starred Review on The Magic Knot

  “Taylor’s debut reads like a romance inside of a fairy tale. It’s a fast story that weaves together the lives of two characters until they are bound by mind, body and spirit. It’s sure to be a hit with a wide variety of romance readers.”

  —RT Book Reviews on The Magic Knot

  Other books by Leanna Renee Hieber:

  The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker

  The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker

  Other books by L. J. McDonald:

  The Shattered Sylph

  The Battle Sylph

  Other books by Helen Scott Taylor:

  The Phoenix Charm

  The Magic Knot

  A

  MIDWINTER

  FANTASY

  Leanna Renee Hieber

  L. J. McDonald

  Helen Scott Taylor

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  November 2010

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  A Midwinter Fantasy copyright © 2010 by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  A Christmas Carroll copyright © 2010 by Leanna Renee Hieber

  The Worth of a Sylph copyright © 2010 by L. J. McDonald

  The Crystal Crib copyright © 2010 by Helen Scott Taylor

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4285-1162-0

  E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0947-4

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  CONTENTS

  A Christmas Carroll

  by Leanna Renee Hieber

  The Worth of a Sylph

  by L. J. McDonald

  The Crystal Crib

  by Helen Scott Taylor

  A Christmas Carroll

  Leanna Renee Hieber

  Team Michael, this is for you.

  ~Leanna Renee Hieber

  Prologue

  December 1888, at the edge of London’s reality

  Three spirits murmured to each other, standing in the luminous Liminal that separated the waiting Whisper-world from the dazzling, drawing light of the Great Beyond. The Whisper-world was quite the grey purgatory, while the Great Beyond, well . . . who possesses the words to describe Paradise?

  The Liminal is a place where magic is discussed and made, from whence spirits receive duties and inspiration, where dreams are both created and abandoned. Where those who are worthy might become angels. It is a place where time is porous and malleable; it keeps its own clock. Here pasts are recaptured and futures glimpsed; here spirits from every walk of death—those still invested in parties on Earth—discuss their current designs on the living, for better or for worse.

  The present trio at the Liminal edge was shrouded in shadow, and they contemplated parties in London, England, under the reign of Queen Victoria. Their clothing, too, represented various decades within Her Highness’s extensive reign, long may she live. The spirits stood before a living portrait rendered by exquisite hands: the vast proscenium of an elaborate stage dwarfed their spirit trio. The set scene laid wide before them was a stately school on a moonlit night, dim, eerie, engaging . . . and awaiting its players.

  The eldest of the three spirits stepped forward as if to touch this threshold upon which the past would play, a tall woman, appearing nearly forty and garbed in a plain dress. Her long, waving tresses—in life, they would have been a dark blonde—hung gamesomely down around her shoulders. Though she wore the grey-scale of death, the palette of the Whisper-world, her eyes were kind and her face very much alive.

  She addressed the two spirits before her—a fair young woman and a raggedy little boy—in a boisterous Irish accent, as if she were presenting a vaudeville act, a mischievous light in her grey-hazel eyes. “Lady and gentleman, our forces of divine intervention present to you one of several scenes rather recently acted, starring our charges Headmistress Rebecca Thompson and Vicar Michael Carroll, here members of that honourable patrol known as The Guard, and the last of our miserable personal dramas to unfold.”

  She took the hands of her fellow spirits, and the Liminal clock set high above the stage frame—a device consisting simply of two vast, floating metal hands above shifting metal barrels of numbers arranged to display a calendar date—began to turn. The scene began to play, memory cast wide as if upon a photography plate, sounds emanating forth quite like magic. The spirits watched.

  In the scene, distant music and laughter lured a tall, willowy woman with silver-streaked auburn hair from her book-filled office into the tenebrous hall of the stately, Romanesque fortress that was Athens Academy. She wore a dark woolen dress buttoned primly and proper as befitted her station as headmistress, yet sewn with just enough elegance to keep her from looking entirely the spinster. Up a grand staircase to a shadowy landing she crept, a wide, colonnaded foyer lit only by great swaths of moonlight and several low-trimmed gas lamps. Hanging back out of sight, she took in the antics of her longtime compatriots, this motley family fate had provided in her youth, the spectre-policing Guard.

  A foppish blond man stood arm in arm with a gorgeous brunette, both swaying beside a broad-shouldered woman playing a waltz on a fiddle—a woman who looked eerily like the Irish spirit now watching from the Liminal. Nearby stood a distinguished figure in clergyman’s garb, singing a soft and tender verse in accompaniment to the strings. From the shadows the headmistress stared at him as if she’d never known or paid attention to hi
s voice, and for a fleeting moment she appeared enchanted. But it was the centre of the scene that clearly struck her a blow, the black-clad man and his ghost-pale partner who danced slowly through a wide shaft of moonlight.

  The waltzing pair was clearly enraptured. Languorous steps, their bodies partaking in the close confidence only marriage could fashion . . . The girl in the moonlight was nothing short of an angel, graceful and blinding white, radiating love as pure as her skin, eyes and hair were colourless. Her partner stared down at her as if she were salvation incarnate, his otherwise stoic manner entirely transformed.

  The headmistress donned pain like a mask. She retreated from the tableau, letting tears come as they would. Keeping to the shadows, she slipped down the stairs and to the corner of the foyer below, looking out over the courtyard. Pressing her forehead to the window, she sighed and did not hear the soft tread behind her.

  His voice made her whirl. “I know that certain things do not unfold according to our desires.”

  It was the clergyman. He stood partly in shadow, his bushy, grey-peppered hair smoothed down from its usual chaos, and his blue eyes danced with an unusually bright light. “I know we cannot always choose who we love. And I know how it hurts to see the one we love look adoringly at someone else. I know; I have been watching you watch Alexi for years.”

  The headmistress registered his words, gaped, flushed and then returned to staring out the window, as if by turning away she might hide her transparent heart from his unmatched scrutiny.

  “I cannot replace him,” the clergyman began again, and waited patiently for her to turn. He continued with a bravery that seemed to surprise them both. “And I do not fault you your emotions, though I must admit a certain jealousy as to their bent. I do not expect to change anything with these words. I know I am bold and perhaps a fool, but I can remain silent no longer. Should you desire closer company . . .” His fortitude wavered and he could not continue the invitation.

  He dropped his gaze and said, “I shall now return to a glass of wine. Or two. But as we’re too old to play games and deny our hearts, I felt it my duty to speak. At long last. At long, long last.” He then offered her his signature, winning smile that could warm the most inhuman heart, bowed slightly and retreated, leaving the headmistress clearly thunderstruck, standing alone once more in the glare of moonlight through the window.

  The scene paused in its inexorable march of a now-past event, and the voyeur spirits in the Liminal turned to one another.

  “What is to be done of it?” the younger female asked in her London accent, staring at the subject before her with both pity and recognition.

  “And what stands between them?” said the little boy, in urchin’s clothes, his voice a Scots brogue.

  “They stand between themselves. And they stand grieving,” the Irishwoman’s spirit replied. “They need a good shaking, the both of them. Twenty years of nonsense, which shall end with us. If we do all we can, if we do what I wish, we’ll end up with this.” She murmured a brief Catholic prayer for intercession, all she could think to offer, and opened her hands in supplication. The Liminal responded, recognizing the tongues of all faiths. The great scene shifted.

  The Liminal clock turned, the numbers trembling, the long hands quivering, as this outcome was not certain. But this possible future scene revealed a warm hearth and home, a blazing fire backlighting two silhouetted forms bending close as only lovers would. The trio of spirits gave sighs of appreciation, felt a gruesome weight of melancholy lifted.

  The Liminal felt the change in their hearts, and the corners of its proscenium reacted; sparkling, vibrant, humming. The relieving of melancholy wielded great power. So, conversely, did the creation of it.

  “But it’s dangerous, the tasks they must be taken through,” the little boy protested, knowing her intent. He shifted his feet on the glassy stone of the Liminal. “We could lose them to time and shadow. We could lose ourselves, be trapped forever if we’re not careful. I do love hangin’ from the Athens chandelier, but a nice rest might make a lovely Christmas present . . .” The loving scene before the fire faded to darkness with a slow hiss.

  The second female nodded. “Even if it weren’t nigh impossible . . . it’s dangerous to weave souls through memories and time. Dark moments can rewrite themselves even darker. To take them through time, to risk changes? To change only the necessary moments, of their particular history, for the correct outcome? And, doing so with members of The Guard? Why, doesn’t that make it even more perilous? Especially considering him.”

  The Irishwoman pursed her lips, undeterred. “True, we only vanquished Darkness in form, not in spirit. We broke the cycle of the vendetta, but human misery will build him again. If we bring the headmistress into his world and she cannot overcome the poison inside her, if she’s captured by the shadows, we’ll have lost. I’ll have died for nothing, The Guard toiled for nothing and the darkness that presses in around us even now will win her. But I’m willing to risk another sacrifice, to threaten my own eternal rest at the side of my beloved. For I believe in many things, but I believe most heartily in Rebecca and Michael.”

  “You’ll dare bring them here?” asked the young woman, in awe. “And for you, what about your love, what will Aodhan—?”

  “I assure you we’ve been up against far worse,” said the Irishwoman. “I warred against the worst of the Whisper-world, remember! I tell you. I’ll make a sacrifice.” She called to the Liminal, announcing herself like a prophet. “Liminal edge, you tell those who beg your aid that you’ll not change the course of lives without barter. But be clear I make my deal with you, not the devil, and I expect generous justice. Thus I place my soul on the line. I agree to remain trapped here in this uncomfortable between, unable to appear to my beloved friends and unable to gain the Great Beyond at my love’s side until our two charges make the first honest step toward learning the lessons we must teach.”

  The Liminal stage had gone dark, a wall of black before them, the occasional tendril of Whisper-world mist curling across its surface.

  “How . . . does one make a . . . deal?” the little boy murmured, breathless.

  “Aodhan told me. My love traveled between worlds for ages and learned many things.” The Irishwoman did not hesitate. She pressed her palms against the Liminal wall and hissed in pain, as if there were needles in that barrier. A deep black fluid oozed from her palms, phantom blood, sipping a bit of her life force before her wounds closed, her compact sealed. The Liminal sparked across its dark threshold like a fork of lightning, the air was charged and the portal was open. Clearly it was ready to begin.

  She turned to her fellows with hope upon her grey face. “Sometimes a good haunting is just what a soul needs, even the most heroic. And we shall surely give them that. Come, we’ve not long before Christmas. It is the time of miracles.”

  “And the Liminal well knows it,” said the boy, peering warily at the portal of infinite possibility. The edges of the frame again sparked, as if in assent.

  The Irishwoman nodded. “Go, let us begin. Call upon them, the both of you. I daresay one of them will be thrilled to see you.”

  They all three closed their eyes in concentration.

  The Liminal clock hands and numbers shifted to the hour and date concurrent with the mortal present, just days beyond the memory they had viewed. A new scene was born, and the living portrait now displayed a modest apartment filled with the same lively Guard characters, all save the headmistress and she who was lost.

  The little boy spirit was the first to descend through the now-porous Liminal membrane, to pass through that proscenium portal and into the room. Immediately inside, there was great tumult regarding him.

  The spirit of the Irishwoman chuckled at this, her greyscale eyes filling with fond tears. The other spirit placed a hand upon her shoulder, but the Irishwoman shrugged it off. “Go on, Miss Peterson.” She gestured her forward, grinning. “I trust that I will eventually be able to follow you.” Her voice was h
opeful but her mood anxious.

  As Ms. Peterson descended, the Irishwoman remained in the Liminal, watching the familiar, tumultuous melee of spectral and human interaction. “I’ll forever miss that. You,” she murmured to the friends who could not see her.

  After a moment, she moved into the thicker shadows. There she drew back a drape on another picture made manifest by the powers of the Liminal edge, a further masterwork in the museum of the cosmos, and murmured, “On a separate stage, the curtain now rises on Headmistress Thompson. Alone.”

  Indeed, just beyond sat Ms. Thompson, isolated in her academy apartments, her knees folded awkwardly upon bedclothes that showed no signs of having been slept in. Usually a model of efficiency, hard work and propriety, the headmistress was uncharacteristically undone.

  The Irishwoman clucked her tongue. “Rebecca. Why aren’t you with our friends? We scored a victory against Darkness. All of us. Why can’t you make use of it?”

  The headmistress’s eyes were red with tears, her blouse askew. A white cat lay curled at her feet, and her thin hand stroked it almost mechanically, as if she dared not stop.

  “I’ve no regrets, Rebecca. Not a single one,” the voyeur spirit murmured. “It’s time you felt the same.” She turned back to the great stage opposite, inside of which her friends had resettled. Her two ghostly companions had disappeared and so she addressed the former Guard, those she considered family. “It’s time all of you felt the same.”

  In the living painting that showcased her cohorts, the sturdy man who had confessed his heart in the earlier scene still sported distinguished age lines, unruly salt-and-pepper hair and clergyman’s clothes. His blue eyes were wide and sparkling with an incomparable quality of compassion. But somewhere deep behind those oceanic orbs, somewhere deep behind the wide and contagious smile and the armour of good humour, lay the same private and keening pain that had just been on display.