A/N: Thanks so much for your wonderful thoughts.

Most characters belong to S. Meyer. The rest belong to me. All mistakes are mine.

"Okay, we've recounted that Christmas Eve, 1921, in the form of a Prologue, and off the bat, you've assured the readers that although you were a bootlegger, you weren't an…ahem, gangster."

"I'm a bit baffled by that tone, Bella. It almost sounds as if you believe I was a gangster. Bella? From your silence, I infer that you believe I was a gangster. So, if I'm reading this wrong-"

"Uhm, let's move on, okay? This is your story as much as it's mine, and all relevant facts will be told."

"I don't appreciate that you're calling me a one-time gangster."

"Ed-"

"But fine. Let's move on."

"Good. Let me restate the opening…"

OOOOO

It was a little-known, Dickensian-style Christmas carol retold every holiday by the townsfolk of Forks, Washington; your basic, absurd ghost story, the typical tale of a house where things went bump in the night, where ivory sheets floated from room to room, and where brooding shadows peered restlessly through grimy windows before fading into the ether.

But instead of three ghosts in grimy, Victorian England, this modern-day carol was set in an old, local Victorian. At the heart of it was the supposed hundred-year-old ghost of a Prohibition-era bootlegger who returned every year in search of the stash of cash he hid there one Christmas Eve. It was equal parts tragic, captivating…

…and freaking hilarious because, of course, it was a crock, as are all ghost tales, Christmas-themed or not – or so I thought the first time I heard it.

It would've likely remained a crock of a tale had I not bought and moved into that house one holiday season after I experienced my own "life-altering" event. At that point, the story of a Christmas ghost became a tale about...so much more.

But, as someone I know likes to say, right now, that's neither here nor there.

So, let's begin where it began for me.

OOOOO

Chapter 1 – It's a Schadenfreude Life

Present Day Seattle, Washington – Thanksgiving

"Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter…"

While my opening scene wasn't as ironically tragic as that of my partner-in-storytelling's prologue – at least, not for me - when I trace it back, I'd say it began with my quietly singing that lyric at the Thanksgiving table. I'll admit it may not have been the most festive song for the occasion, made even less jolly by my staring into a half-empty goblet of wine. Unfortunately, we'll never know if that's what set my Great-Aunt Gertrude Grace off on an epic rant that would alter all our lives.

Gertrude Grace Higginbotham, or Aunt Gigi, as we called her, was my mom's extremely, extremely old, widowed aunt. No one really knew how old she actually was, but she was so old that her skin was as wrinkled as that of a holiday cranberry. She still wore her hair in a '60s-era, box-dyed, blue-black beehive that distractingly swayed from side to side whenever she gestured – and she gestured plenty. She also sported a rather disturbing collection of bangles made from the ivory tusks of elephants from a safari she went on decades earlier. The bangles traveled up her flaccid arms in a spiral and banged together annoyingly with her every movement – reminding me of all those poor, tuskless elephants.

However, none of that would've mattered, or rather I should say it would've all been relegated to the eccentricities of a massively old woman if it wasn't for her tongue. That tongue was so sharp it could've sliced the dead turkey that sat mid-table; no carving knife needed. Lord knows she didn't need encouragement to wield it. Every holiday, she pointed that sharp knife of a tongue in my direction, simply for the reason that in her old-fashioned mind, at twenty-seven, I represented all the horrors of the modern woman.

That Thanksgiving dinner, therefore, started much as expected. Whether her blade of a tongue was dipped in more vitriol than usual or whether my armor against it was weakened by a series of disenchanting years since my college graduation – a well-paying yet sparkless job, superficial friendships, a parade of men who fulfilled my physical needs but did nothing for me emotionally, and all of it combined to drain me of inspiration – we may never know. Maybe it was a bit of both?

All I know is that I was singing that song and ignoring the dead turkey – the actual dead turkey, not Aunt Gigi.

"Bella, since you're not eating turkey or getting married or doing anything beyond promoting drunken, single promiscuity," – she waved a bangle-covered arm in my direction – "maybe you can pass the mashed sweet potatoes, although why the sweet potatoes are mashed this year eludes me."

And okay, in hindsight, perhaps I could've acquiesced to her request while maintaining my song and sipping pinot to my heart's content. But it was the way she phrased her request that provoked me, that sent me on that spiraling path toward-

Wait. Now I'm the one getting ahead of myself.

I shot the old hag a broad, admittedly semi-drunk grin. "I'm not promoting anything, Aunt Gigi, beyond perhaps Queen's music."

"Hm. Never did like that…queer boy and his strange ways."

"'Course you didn't," I muttered.

Her head shot up, blue hive jiggling like Jello. "Pardon me?"

"Nothing, Aunt Gigi," my mom answered hastily for me, then, with all the love and care of a parent, attempted to segue the conversation away from me. "Ahem, Aunt Gigi, how are things at the senior citizen center? Are you keeping yourself entertained? Keeping your mind busy? Reading those novels Bella and I dropped off for you?"

"I refuse to read that garbage that passes for literature nowadays." She shuddered in disapproval, those bangles and that hive shaking along with her and making me cringe. "They're full of sex and drugs."

"And rock and roll! Ba-da-bum-CHING!" I exclaimed, punctuating my punchline with a pretend percussion rimshot. Unfortunately, this had the foreseen effect of negating my poor mom's efforts to shield me from that tongue. When Aunt Gigi glowered my way, I cleared my throat and glared back at my wine glass.

"Bella, can you please tear yourself away from your liquor long enough to pass the sweet potatoes? I'm not getting any younger here," she chuckled. "Goodness, kids nowadays can't function without some liquid fuel, can they? In my day, we knew how to face life's disappointments without turning into hippie alcoholics."

My head shot up, and I spouted, perhaps a bit too defensively, "Who says my life is a disappointment?"

"Oh, honey." Aunt Gigi reached out one of her spindly, elephant-husk-covered arms and rested a glacial hand on top of mine. And as she offered me her phony sympathy, I resisted the urge to pull away my hand. "Why, it's written all over those overdone eyes. You know what you need, Bella?"

"Other than a bottle of bleach to use on my hand wherever those tusks touch?"

"A husband."

I tore away my hand and returned to my wine, ignoring Aunt Gigi's Medusa gaze shooting my profile daggers.

"Now, Gertrude," my dad interrupted, setting down his utensils, "Bella is fine just as she is."

The gorgon scoffed. "Sure she is. It's perfectly normal to go through an entire bottle of wine by yourself, and the pecan pie hasn't even made an appearance yet!"

With a raised brow, I swept my eyes away from my goblet and peered sideways, momentarily meeting my dad's gaze. His mustache twitched, lips pressed together tightly as he offered me a furtive head shake – 'Do not engage the beast!'

"You know what, Aunt Gigi? I totally can pass the sweet potatoes. However, the correct request should've been, 'Bella, please pass the sweet potatoes.' Everything else you said before and after was superfluous." I smiled and blinked prettily at the ancient, myopic, narrow-minded, petty, and prejudiced harpy.

"Why, thank you for the correction, sweetheart!" she exclaimed. "It's lovely to see that English degree your parents paid for going to some sort of use!"

Once again, my mom cut in. "Aunt Gigi, Bella puts that degree to use every single day at her job." She then widened her eyes, attempting a similar warning to the one my dad had just issued. "So, how does everyone like this year's new sweet potato recipe?"

"It tastes disgusting."

I poured myself more wine.

"I mean, what self-respecting American not only smashes sweet potatoes but adds coconut milk to them?" the old biddy continued.

"Aunt Gigi, if you don't like them, why do you keep asking me to pass them to you?"

"Something you still haven't done."

"I'm still waiting for a grammatically correct request."

Her wrinkled nostrils flared, sending her overly long and thick nasal hairs billowing. "And what's wrong with good old American cows' milk?" she snapped.

"Do you have any idea the condition those poor cows are kept in?" I said.

"We were all here raised on cow's milk, and the cows survived the indignation – and made us all quite healthy while at it, I might add. It's all these foreign foods, these foreign traditions," she scowled in disgust, throwing up her hands so that her bracelets rattled like snake tails. "They're ruining this country. Coconut milk," she scoffed, tossing her blue hive. "And where are the marshmallows?"

Now, one might conceivably believe this was more than enough for one Thanksgiving dinner. But Aung Gigi was nowhere near done.

"And, of course, a degree is never a waste, Renee. I never said that."

"Aunt Gigi, you just implied-"

"I never said such a thing, Renee," the obstinate battle-ax insisted. "I merely wonder at these…newfangled, liberated sort of women who feel the need to prove something through useless bits of knowledge, through strange eating habits, though what all is being proven eludes me," she chuckled.

Setting down my now empty wine goblet, I massaged my temples and blew out a breath of frustration.

"Aunt Gigi, there's nothing new about women wanting to take care of themselves. Women have wanted to take care of themselves since the beginning of time. They just weren't allowed."

"That's not true. In my day, women were happy to allow their men to be the man of the house while we women fulfilled our God-given duties around the house."

"Kill me now," I muttered, rolling my eyes.

"What is it that you're doing with that degree anyway, Bella, that's so much more important than marrying and raising a family? Still writing words on TV screens?"

My scalp prickled. "If you mean closed-captioning for the hearing impaired, then yes, Aunt Gigi. It pays well and leaves me plenty of time to write my novel."

"Ahh, yes," she nodded slowly, her crow's-feet-framed slitted eyes gleaming. "That great American novel you've been working on for a while now. How's that coming along?"

Images flashed through my inebriated mind…my sitting with my laptop open at my writing desk in my cramped Seattle apartment. The city's noises seeped through the thick walls while Washington's muted sun rose then set on an unimpressive, uninspiring view of an alley. If I stood and went to the living room's small window, pulled it open, and hung half my body out of it while stretching my neck into positions that would impress a contortionist, I could just make out the Space Needle, framed by the Olympic Mountain Range in the far distance. Their peaks – whether snow-capped in the winter or lush green in the summer months – marked the passing seasons as I wrote the narration for various television programs…and the document entitled 'My Novel draft' remained blank.

"It's…I'm…progressing."

"Bella, that's wonderful!" Mom exclaimed at the lie before Aunt Gigi could comment. She raised her glass. "I say we toast to that!"

"Here, here!" Dad agreed, raising his glass as well.

For a moment, I felt a flash of unmitigated adoration, of an unadulterated belief from both of my creators. Even though I'd never shown them hair nor hide of this yet-to-be-written novel, although I hadn't shared a word of a yet-unplotted plotline, my parents gazed at me without a shadow of a doubt, with so much unequivocal certainty in my abilities and me that for that exact moment, I believed it myself. And even though there was nothing to toast to – not yet - an excited grin slowly lifted one then the other corner of my mouth. Inspiration swelled within me like a balloon, ideas taking shape, swirling like those holiday sugarplums in my head. A series of images flickered before me: screen pages and pages of words, my signature on book deals, book signings held in front of adoring fans, and…and strangely enough…a pair of green eyes?

The termagant's voice erupted like nails on a chalkboard and dispelled all those images.

"And what does your boyfriend, Jacob, think of your novel?"

My dad set down his glass. Mom sighed.

Gertrude Grace shook her blue-haired head, a mocking smile, more sneer than sympathy spread like vines around her mouth.

"Oh, that's right, I forgot. It slipped my old mind that you chased away yet another boyfriend with your feminine ways. Oh, sweetie." This time, when a liver-spotted, skeletal hand reached out for mine, I moved my hand out of her reach.

"That's fine," she smiled. "'Course you're bitter tonight. You got no man! But I'm sure a young man will eventually come along who doesn't mind that his girlfriend hates men and meat – just as long as she's got good grammar." Before I could pull back, she pinched my cheek between two icy fingers. "Now, may you please pass the sweet-"

"As long as she has good grammar."

"What?" Aunt Gigi frowned.

"You're still saying it wrong, you old, nasty, wrinkled, ivory-trading, pompous, prejudiced, fossilized crone."

For a long moment, silence ruled our small Thanksgiving feast.

"By the way, I brought the unpatriotic, smashed, coconut-milk infused sweet potatoes-"

"Figures."

"And you know what else, Aung Gertrude? If a man can't handle me and my ways, then I don't need him."

"The argument of every old maid. Bella, your girly parts are going to shrivel up and-"

"Gertrude!"

"Aunt Gigi!"

"Aunt Gigi," I chuckled, pouring myself more wine, "I've got my own hands and vibrators to take care of that, and there's no way in heck I'm getting into a topic of my sex life with you." I took a long, long sip while Aunt Gertrude stupidly gaped at me. "But you're right about one thing, Gertrude Grace. I need a fucking change, a new perspective, new scenery. By George, I need to get the hell out of Seattle!" I exclaimed as the idea hit me. Then, I set my goblet down and grabbed the bowl of sweet potatoes, slamming it down in front of her so forcefully bits jumped out of the rim. "Thank you, Aunt Gertrude, for leading me so helpfully toward that epiphany, and in gratitude for your assistance, here are your mashed sweet potatoes. Try not to choke on them," I grinned.

And as her eyes glazed, and her head fell face-first into the bowl, I remember thinking how, of course, Aunt Gigi would repudiate me with her dying breath.

OOOOO

We held the funeral a few days later. Afterward, I helped Mom clean up from a small gathering. Then I excused myself and made my way to the balcony for a bit, wrapping myself in blankets as I gazed at the silver droplets of rain falling in the foreground of white-peaked mountains. Dad met me out there a short while later. Michael Bublé's voice streamed in when he opened the balcony door and handed me a glass.

I quirked a brow. "Christmas music and Egg nog?"

"Oh, why not?"

I snorted. "She had to have the last word, didn't she, Dad?"

"Did she, though?"

I shook my head, sighing. "Here's what I don't get. Why did she leave me everything? She hated me!"

"I don't know that she hated you, honey. More like…strongly disliked you."

"Potato, poh-taht-toe." When I rolled my eyes, he chuckled.

"Bella, sometimes people from a different era have a hard time letting go. And sometimes…letting go is the only way to move forward."

Prophetic words, though at the time, we had no clue.

"So I killed her with my blunt speech is what you're saying."

"No," Dad chuckled again. "What I'm saying is, you gave it to her straight."

"Yeah, I gave it to her straight – straight into her heart. Ba-da-bum-CHING!" I exclaimed, with my old percussion rimshot act. This time, it went off much better, and both Dad and I snickered.

"Nothing wrong with being a straight shooter, Bella, and I think…wherever she is…Gertrude appreciated that."

"Maybe," I shrugged after a pause. "Tell you what she wouldn't appreciate – knowing those bangles are gonna be sold and used to provide funds to stop elephant poaching."

"She's probably rolling in her grave," Dad said, shaking his head.

We both shuddered. In the ensuing silence, Bublé crooned about White Christmas dreams.

"Dad, I need a change. I've stagnated. I feel as if I've reached the end of this chapter in my story."

"The story you're writing?"

"No, Dad. This story. My story."

My dad nodded. "Well, you've got the money now," he said. Then he met my gaze and offered me an encouraging smile. "Got any ideas?"

My eyes swept toward the horizon. "I had a…vision, though I guess it was more like wishful thinking around the Thanksgiving table, right before Aunt Gigi's face landed in the sweet potatoes and her hive hit the gravy bowl. I saw myself writing, but…really writing, Dad. Inspired," I grinned, "with a great story in my mind and snow falling over the mountains, and a pair-"

"A pair?" my dad prompted when I cut myself off before mentioning that pair of green eyes I'd seen in my mind's eye, gazing at me while I typed away.

"A pair…a pair of turtle doves," I lied.

"And a partridge in a pear tree?"

We laughed.

"I don't want to wake up one holiday season, pissed off at a life that passed me by, bitching at the younger generation, and unaware that I've turned into a mean, elephant-husk collecting nag." I drew in a deep, winter-air-infused breath. "So, I'm off to surround myself with nature and inspiration and…"

…and those green eyes…

I pushed away that strange thought and smiled.

"And who knows? Maybe this holiday season will be completely out of this world and the beginning of a new, magical chapter in my story!"

Little did I know how accurate that was.

A/N: Thoughts?

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