scurlock | 2012: ghosts of christmas plot

"You won't need that," she says easily.

And it won't work on her, anyway.

She's tall, when she straightens out of the slouch she'd adopted. At least for a moment. Then she's rather on the short side.

"Hello, Josiah.

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"The Ghost of..."

He releases the grip he had on the weapon, and rubs his hand over his face - she's still there when he opens his eyes again.

"All right." He nods. "You're not going away, are you."

"Christmas Past," she provides. "Your past, in fact, to be specific."

At least at the moment.

"And no, I'm not going away. Not yet, anyway.

"My siblings and I have things to show you."

Doc nods, pushing himself upright in bed - he's wearing a thermal shirt and flannel sleep pants, but it'll do for traveling through his past, present, and future.

(He knows how this works. Granted, it is happening in Milliways, and who knows what that means.)

"I can't exactly say I'm surprised at seein' you," he drawls, with a half-smile as he climbs out of the bed and walks towards her. "What with the tricks this place enjoys playing."

There's not really a dress code. It's the ultimate come as you are party.

"Well, maybe we'll surprise you yet.

"It's best not to be thinking of us as a trick, though."

She smiles and holds out her hand.

"Ready?"

"You're more of a spirit guide anyway," he replies, taking her hand.

They walk through the doorway of his bedroom, but they don't exit into the shifting, turning halls of Milliways' upstairs boarding house - they're moving down a different hallway, one that he's not been in in many years but he instantly recognizes.

When he worked for John Tunstall, the ranchhands slept in a bunkhouse just off the main house - each man had a bed and small bedside table or stand, a rough-hewn chest for belongings and clothes. There was a common room with fireplace. It was comfortable enough - but Mr. Tunstall had no problem with any of the men (boys) wishing to join him in the main house to sit in the large parlor, so long as they had washed up before the meal and behaved.

Doc keeps his footsteps light as they near the doorway. He can hear the voices of the others filtering through the entrance, and he peeks around slowly, looking in at the warmly-lit room and the group sitting on the couches and in chairs. Tunstall stands near the fireplace, fiddling with something on the mantle. There are lanterns glowing, and a tree (a slightly-scraggly pinyon pine stands in the corner, decorated with a handful of fancy baubles, candles, and some more handcrafted stars made from hammered and sanded tin) to decorate the room.

They're all there.

Tunstall. Richard. Charlie. Dirty Steve. Chavez. Billy.

He's even there, too, looking younger (this was before the Lincoln County War, before the years on the run and before it all went to hell) and happier.

If his grip tightens slightly on her hand at the sight, he'll have to be excused.

"S'was the last one 'fore it all went sour," he murmurs, almost afraid to speak lest he be heard by the men in the room.

"They can't hear you," the Ghost says, from just behind him. "Or see you either.

"We're just visiting, Josiah. What we see and hear has already played out."

And he's played his part in it.

"Watch."

She doesn't have to tell him twice - he can't look away. He barely feels her presence where she stands behind him (probably because she's barely there anyway) and his eyes are focused on the scene as it plays out.

He'd forgotten the details - remembered the evening, yes, but the details had fogged and clouded with the gunsmoke and tears shed for friends he had to put in the ground.

(or in some cases, leave in the dust)

Every man in the room except for Billy and Chavez, and himself will be dead within the next six months.

It'll be two more years before they get Chavez, and almost get him, too.

"John was killed on New Year's day," he says quietly. "We couldn't have known we'd only have a week before everything fell apart. I'm glad we didn't," he adds, nodding to the group as they laugh at a particular story that Richard recounts from his own childhood holiday. "It would've ruined this."

Doc swallows hard, because the memories - while a positive, happy time - are difficult to dredge up into his mind.

As Steve reaches for his harmonica, the entire group groans - including Tunstall, but the smile on his face is fond, patient, and kind.

They put up with the slightly-off key rendition of a familiar carol for a few bars, before Doc feels the floorboards shift slightly, the air move. They won't stay long here - it won't be long enough, but it never would be long enough.

"It's good to see this."

"I'm glad to hear that.

"People don't always find that to be the case, of that which they see in my company."

"I know I still have two more to go, if this works the way I recall," he replies, wry grin pulling at his features. "I won't go as far as to say I'll certainly appreciate the others, but yours, I do."

And he means it.

They leave the parlor and head back down the hallway. The door that will lead out to the porch isn't more than a half-dozen steps, down on the right.

"It's not often one gets the chance to revisit friends, when you're in my line of living."

"My siblings," she says, following him a half-pace behind.

"We show you what you need to see. What appreciation you have of it . . . well, that's your decision.

"We only illuminate. You pick the path."

That gives him pause, and he slows his walk, facing her as they stand in the chill of a New Mexico Territory winter's night.

Whether she's lit by the glow from the windows of the main house, or within, he's not sure, but he supposes it doesn't matter.

"So I get to choose the next stop'n the trip?" He asks, hesitantly.

(Hopefully.)

"Keep walking," she says.

"And see where you find yourself."

Whether he finds himself there because of choices he makes in this instant or another . . . does it matter?

There's an order of these things. Christmas Past, then Christmas Present, and finally Christmas Future.

Hands tucked into his pockets, he begins to walk down the dirt road, that if followed long enough, leads all the way back into Lincoln.

But it's not Lincoln he ends up in.

There is snow on the ground, mixing with the well-traveled mud of New York City's streets. Chinatown - the noise and bustle around him is enough to set his defenses on high alert, but nobody pays him any attention, even if his outfit isn't in line with the times - because they can't see him.

He doesn't understand the language being spoken by most of the people on the streets, but that doesn't matter. He's still reading the signs on the buildings. Looking for a certain one. Everything has changed since he was here last...

"I never thought it would get this built up so quickly," he says.

Industry is booming, and the city that never sleeps isn't sleeping, even in 1884.

"Speed is always relative.

"Is this where you hoped to go?"

"It is," he nods. "But...I think I may be a little lost."

He rubs the back of his neck and studies the signs, though the characters make no sense to him. He shakes his head and keeps walking - hopping up on the boardwalk to keep out of the mud, offering her his arm.

(She is a lady, after all. And he is a gentleman.)

"It may be in the next block. It's been awhile since I've been here."

She takes the offered arm. (That's what a lady does, when a gentleman offers.)

"We'll walk, then."

They'll find their way to wherever they need to be.

One way or another.

(That's how it works, in her company, on this night.)

(Linear travel is for boring people anyway.)

The next block isn't what he'd expected, but it works - they find themselves outside of a laundry. There is an apartment upstairs, but it's not the apartment he's interested in right now.

A few customers are in the front of the shop, the scent of steam and soap in the air. Doc ignores the way the lye makes his nose burn ever-so-slightly and steps through the door, looking for two people who should be there.

But neither of them are there.

Her father (his father-in-law) is there. As is her mother (his mother-in-law). Both are working the counter.

Where is she? he thinks. Where is my son--

It's a good thing that they're not truly interacting with their surroundings, the way that Doc moves behind the counter and towards the hall that will lead back to the work rooms, where tubs of hot water and dirty laundry meet, to be scrubbed, starched, and pressed.

He can move through the counter if the fancy strikes him. Or through anything else, for that matter.

And she'll keep up.

The fact that he's not entirely corporeal at the moment is lost to him, though later he'll wonder how he managed to slip through the crowded hall, up the stairs, and through the door (did he open it - he doesn't remember opening it) into the small apartment that sits in the loft above the business.

Her presence is an afterthought.

The rooms are empty - he searches them regardless.

And then he sees it - sitting on a shelf in a corner of the room. Two wooden plaques, both inscribed with characters (names) he recognizes. The incense sticks that smolder beside them send drifts of smoke curling into the air -- but despite the movement of the breeze through the room, Doc feels as if he can hardly breathe.

He's gone still, frozen in place like his bones are suddenly made of lead, like his veins have frosted over with ice. His voice makes an attempt at speaking, but he fails at first - eventually, when he does speak, it's low and forced.

"Y'probably can't tell me how it happened, can you."

It is a thing that has already happened.

Of course she can tell him.

She can't necessarily make it easy to hear, but then, who could?

Her tone, at least, is kind, even if the words are not.

"Consumption. Tuberculosis.

"Late spring of the year you see before you.

"Sun Yen passed first, and Jonathan not long after."

It's too real for him to just imagine that he's dreaming all this - even if everything seems a little blurred around the edges of his vision, the haze isn't from illusion.

Doc nods, his eyes falling to a newspaper which gives away the date.

(1883.)

He looks back at the altar and then straightens his stance; his fingers itch for a gunbelt that's not there. He feels exposed, without his guns at his hips, dressed in flannel and a pair of socks.

"I think I'm done here," he says quietly. "Thank you."

There is still more to come, he knows that. But he can't stay here, where even the air that presses around them threatens to steal his breath away.

She nods, and holds her hand out to him.

They should be getting him back for his meeting with her middle sibling, anyway.

It takes him a second (one more glance over his shoulder, one more intake of breath) before he takes her hand and then they head out into the hallway.

Except it's not the laundry they walk back into; he honestly shouldn't be surprised to find that they've returned to Milliways, somewhere upstairs in a corridor - dimly lit, but he's not all that surprised by that either.

"Guess y'gotta take the good with the bad," he says.

She isn't be much help with the dim lighting. As soon as she releases his hand, she begins to fade away, growing fainter and dimmer as she speaks.

"They frequently exist in each other's
company.

"And now I leave you in the hands of my siblings, and with the hope that the good will continue to exist in at least equal measure to the bad.

"Merry Christmas, Josiah."

And she is gone, and the hall is dark.

"The same to you," he replies, watching as her figure dims and then fades out. Alone in the hallway, he looks down to either end of the corridor and isn't sure if he's supposed to go looking for her siblings, or if they'll find him.

He rubs the back of his neck with one hand, pulling in a deep breath to steady his heart and head.

"Now's not the time for a breakdown, Scurlock," he mutters to himself.

The festive colored bulbs that line the hallway's ceiling then flicker, glowing brighter...

And suddenly he's not alone in the corridor anymore.

"Merry Christmas, cowboy," says the Ghost of Christmas Present.

"I take it you're expecting me?"

He can't help but smile, even if it is a bit half-hearted.

"You could say that," he replies. "Your sister told me you'd be comin' along 'fore too long. Wasn't sure if I was t'go lookin' or you'd find me yourself. Guess you answered that."

A pause.

"Christmas Present?"

"The one and only."

He said.

There may only be one of him...her...it, but the Ghost does enjoy changing it up.

"And you're Josiah Scurlock."

The Ghost of Christmas Present holds out an arm.

"Come. Walk with me."

Nodding, he moves forward and takes the other man's arm - it feels pretty unnatural, but for the sake of not getting lost in wherever they end up going, he'll do it.

At first, the surroundings shift to simple haze; non de-script and unremarkable in any way, shape, or form. He's not sure where they're headed (part of the problem - he needs to pick the path) but figures they'll get there eventually.

It's not Milliways.

And it's not New Mexico Territory. It's not Sherwood Forest and it's not Wheelsy, either. And it's not aboard the Enterprise.

It's Alabama. Tallapoosa County.

There's no snow on the ground, but the air is cool. They're walking alongside the creek that will run into a river, joining up with another before it hits the lake. The road doesn't kick up dust.

"I know where we are now," he says. "This is home."

A small farmhouse glows in the distance through the trees. It won't take long to reach the front porch.

(Hopefully his mother will refrain from greeting him with his daddy's Winchester this time.)

"It's lovely," the Ghost says, her elaborate skirts sweeping along the ground.

She looks up at the house.

"Shall we go in?"

He nods, as they step up onto the porch and head through the front door. Part of him cringes at how easy it is for them to gain entry into the house, but he has to remind himself - the rules don't apply here.

There is a small cedar tree stood in the corner of the parlor, and his family (those that are left, anyway) are gathered around.

His sister sits on the low couch, holding a nursing babe in her arms.

Doc's smile brightens at the sight.

"M'an uncle and I didn't even know 'bout it," he says, moving closer. His hesitation has left him, and while he wishes he was actually here and participating in the festivities, it's a welcome sight to see the members of his family so happy.

His mother is radiant, dressed in her finest skirts and blouse - his father must have gotten them for her after the War, and after Doc had 'left' for the west from New Orleans. He doesn't recognize the garments, but he's glad to see her in them.

"S'good to see her happy. She was so sad, for so many years, durin' the War," he says. "It was hard. Even then jus' bein' a boy, I knew it was rough."

"You have a beautiful family, Josiah," the Ghost says.

It is indeed a fine sight to look upon.

"It must do your heart good to see them."

"Thank you, it does," he says. "Especially..."

His eyes close as his mind replays the visions from earlier - of Christmas past.

The idea of Yen and Jonathan being gone makes his head swim a bit, but he forces his eyes open once again - this image is too precious to ignore, and he knows that they won't have much time here.

"Especially after what I saw earlier," he finishes.

It isn't a particularly lavish occasion here in Tallapoosa County, but it is familiar, and a welcome familiarity that he hasn't felt in many years.

"I wonder if she's told them I ain't dead," he says, of his mother. "I know it came as a blessin' to her when I came back, after the years...but I don't know if she'd tell 'em. Not sure if it'd be safe to have folks know...but livin' like this is hard," he admits.

At least you are livin'. Don't you forget that, Scurlock, he thinks. It's a sobering reminder.

"We can stay for a while if you want," the Ghost says.

That is the thing about the Present. It is, in the end, a moment.

They can wait for a moment.

"Let me know when you're ready to go, man."

For they will have to move on eventually.

He nods, barely even acknowledging this shift of the ghost's physical form (can ghosts have physical forms?) from female to male. It doesn't matter, and he's honestly gotten a little used to the rotating kaleidoscope of companions at his side tonight.

And for all that time marches on, this is a moment in the present.

So he spends it watching and listening; to the conversations being had between his sister and her husband, between his mother and her grandchild. He focuses on the glow of the fire in the hearth, and of the smells in the air - there is cedar and pine and hot coffee.

And the familiar, comforting warmth of being home...

But eventually, he turns - because he knows that the moment must pass, even if he'd rather it not - and nods at the ghost.

"We can head out," Doc says, motioning for the front door, taking care to keep his steps quiet against the hardwood floorboards.

She (a she this time) nods with a smile, holding out her hand again.

"Come on then, honey," she says kindly.

Time to walk on and see where their feet will take them next.

He takes her hand and offers her a smile in return, as they walk out the door and head back to the same hallway as earlier. The lights flicker as the ghost begins to fade from his view.

"Thank you for helpin' me get t'the farm," he says - not sure if she'll hear him, but he hopes so. He does appreciate it.

Even as present fades away, the shadows in one corner of the room stir, swelling and parting to reveal a slim figure, cloaked and cowled.

She extends one hand, slender and bone-cold, and beckons Josiah forward.

Or perhaps it is more accurate to say 'demands'.

This is different, and something that he didn't entirely expect.

Caution painting his facial features, he steps forward - though to be quite honest, 'caution' is his default expression most days, given everything that he's been through and lived through.

But he does not hesitate in extending his hand to the figure.

"The other two made sense, past and present," he says. "I ain't quite sure where we're intendin' to go."

(How can he chose his own future vision if he doesn't know what is going to happen?)

The mistake is in thinking that he chooses anything. Or that she does.

Her hand closes around his, grip cold and immutable as granite.

Then she takes them a step forward, two --

Around them fold the shadows, and when they fall back again, both the spirit and Josiah are somewhere else.

The shadows fade from black (so thick he can hardly even breathe) to charcoal-grey and then to a brilliant, blinding white that hits them with a burst of bone-chilling cold that cuts through the clothes he's wearing.

They're standing in the middle of a snowstorm, a blizzard, really, and the wind whips her cloak around them with a ferocious intensity; it gusts so strongly that he's nearly knocked off his feet and into the deep drifts they're standing in.

"Fargin' hell--"

He has no idea where they are.

But there is a treeline he can just barely made out through the swirling snow, so he sets off for it. Her hand is still gripped tightly in his, but she doesn't seem to fight the progress towards the relative 'safety' of the stand of ancient hemlocks in the distance.

He has to struggle through the drifts, each step numbing his legs and feet to the point where they feel as if they're solid blocks of ice.

Once they finally reach the treeline, the snow lessens (but the cold does not).

Doc wipes the snow from his face and focuses his eyes to the shaded area, a welcome respite from the blinding whiteout - and then notices that they're not alone. A small cabin sits dark in the clearing, seemingly empty.

He trudges toward it - hoping it's unlocked...

Indeed it is unlocked, though the ghost makes no move to open it herself.

This is Josiah's to do, if he will.

And the relative emptiness within --

Who that belongs to is anyone's guess.

He does indeed open the door, closing it behind them to ward of some of the chill that hangs heavy in the air - though it is only just barely warmer within the tiny building than it is outside.

No fire has burned in the hearth in some time, and the layers of dust and dirt that cover every surface show no evidence of being disturbed in many, many years. A draft swirls through the cabin, bringing a small drift of snow inside through a broken window pane on the far wall.

Shivering, he moves towards the mantle, where a rusted (though he can hardly tell for the coating of grime and patina) blade sits, leaned up against the rough-hewn stones.

And then the air stills, and the howling of the wind cuts off abruptly - the room is silent, save for his breathing, which has gone ragged due to the cold that's burning his lungs with each inhalation.

(It feels a bit like he's trapped in a cave or tomb with a decreasing amount of oxygen available, and that reminds him of sitting in the pit beneath the gallows in the middle of Lincoln's town square, waiting for the trapdoor above to open - and his likely hanging to occur.)

Doc swallows roughly, and glances around, looking for a way out. The whiteout outside would be better than this. Anything would be better than this place.

The ghost's hand sits firmly on his shoulder, bone-cold and heavy, as if to make sure that he sees.

Maybe, too, to make certain that he understands.

Then her grip shifts to his wrist, tugging lightly as they move back into shadow --

Returning to Milliways, and a different sort of silence.

As the world shifts in reverse, so do the shadows - white to grey to black - before they're returned to Milliways.

But they're not the hallway.

They're in his bedroom, in the staff hallway; Doc looks around for the figure, but all he gets is a glimpse of shadow that ripples and fades into non-existence, as quickly as it came. He shivers, reminded of the biting cold they'd just stepped from, and makes his way to fetch a heavy coat from the rack near the door.

It may still be early, but he won't be going back to sleep. The crowded Christmas-morning bar will be better than this silence that permeates the apartment.

He wants a cup of coffee, with bourbon. And marshmallows.

2012: ghosts of christmas plot

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