The Christmas Plainsong (eBook)

Izzy James (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017 | 1. Auflage
111 Seiten
Bent Knee Press (Verlag)
978-0-00-004270-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Scrooge is saved! Yay!

But what happened a year later when Scrooge went home to the village where he grew up?

In this modern re-imagining of the classic tale, Ebenezer Stack comes home seeking forgiveness from the woman he left behind.

Silverbelle Bennett got over Ebenezer Stack exactly thirty-three years ago when he chose money and a successful career over a happily-ever-after with her. Sure, she forgives him, but that doesn't mean he has to be a part of her life...Even if her BFF and her father think they're a match.

Can a newborn Ebenezer Stack convince his long lost love that it's never too late?

Textauszug

Chapter 2

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

Silver opened one groggy eye and said, “Lindy, I’m sleeping.” And in her own bed. Twenty-four hours in the hospital was no way to get a good night’s sleep. She’d only been home a few minutes when she gave up on keeping her eyes open.

“If I don’t wake you up now, you’ll be up all night.” Lindy, her very best friend from high school, plopped herself down hard on the bed.

Silver rolled away and covered her head with a pillow. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ebenezer Stack is back.”

Silver groaned.

“What’s he doing here anyway?” Lindy tugged at the pillow. Silver gave up, pulled the pillow away from her face, and sat up.

“You’re not going away, are you?”

“Definitely not.” Lindy grabbed the pillow and scrunched it in her lap.

“Honestly, I do not know or care what he’s doing here. I gave up caring about Ebenezer Stack exactly thirty-three years ago.”

“Oh, I know. He’s a greedy, grasping, son of no good.” Lindy rolled her eyes.

“Right.”

The phrase she’d used so many times to describe her old love didn’t seem to describe him now. Was it fair to keep someone in the same category you relegated him to a lifetime ago?

Silver brushed the hair out of her eyes. “He told me he was hit by lightning and saw Jesus.”

Lindy sat there as still and quiet as Silver had ever seen her. Two slow blinks later, the gears of her brain started to turn, and her restless limbs came back to life. Lindy’s blue eyes, enhanced by her royal blue scrubs, conveyed a knowing look.

“He came back for you, didn’t he?”

“No.”

Lindy’s look challenged.

“Okay. He asked me to forgive him.”

A broad smile broke out in rainbows across Lindy’s face. “I knew it!” She hugged the pillow. “It’s a happily ever after!”

“Lindy,” Silver got up and headed toward the bathroom, “I already had my happily ever after—his name was Seth.” She closed the bathroom door. That was the thing about steroids after an allergic reaction. It was like being wrung out like a soaking wet dishcloth.

“Of course you forgave him on the spot.” Lindy was still in raptures when Silver returned.

Silver rolled her eyes.

Seth. The man who’d married her the year after she’d been devastated. A good man. A man who truly loved her. It took three years to get over his death. And now three and a half years later, she wasn’t so sure she could say that, although she could laugh at their shared jokes now. She could breathe when she thought of him.

“It is not good for a woman to be alone,” she misquoted.

“I’m not alone. I have my dad, my children, my grandchildren, and my work.”

Lindy sobered and said, “Your children moved away, and your dad is getting up there.” She stood. “You shouldn’t be alone, Silverbelle. Life is too short. Seth wouldn’t want you to do that.”

“We’ve been through this before.”

“True, but the circumstances have changed.” She threw the pillow on the bed as she turned and added, “Who knew Ben would be back?”

“I don’t think he is ‘back,’” she countered as they entered the living room.

“Who’s back?” Her dad looked up from the television.

“Ebenezer Stack.” Lindy grinned and dropped onto the couch across from him.

The largest room in their bungalow was filled with light filtering in from the lace curtains covering front porch windows. Her father pointed the remote and muted the sound.

“What’s he doing here?”

Relief surged through Silver. She knew she could count on him. If sharp eyes were any gauge of sharp intellect, Tim Mercer was Einstein’s heir. Like a two-edged sword, her father cut quickly through the fluff to the bone of any issue that had plagued her. Often she was annoyed by it; this time she was glad.

“I think he’s come back for Silver.”

“Did he say that?” He turned his razor focus on Silver.

“Not exactly,” Lindy grinned, “but he did ask for her forgiveness.” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

“We really don’t know why he’s here,” Silver countered. “He appears to be working on the old Stack house.”

“I thought it was sold years ago.”

“Don’t know, but I was delivering a package for him there when I got stung.” She rubbed her hand up and down the lumpy sore spots on her arm.

“How are you now?”

“Better. Sleepy, but better.” She rested her head on his bicep. He lifted his arm, and she tucked into the old cradle.

“I’d better go. I’m due at the hospital at three,” she heard Lindy say behind closed eyelids. She dropped a peck on each of their heads before she left.

“He called me ‘Silly,’” Silver said to the comfort of her father’s chest.

“Nobody’s called you that since your mother died.”

Feet sounded through the house.

Fred’s feet. Melody’s feet. The twins light-footed as they called out and ran for forgotten items. Dogs feet clicking and sliding on polished hardwood floors.

Saturday mornings when Ben was a child meant cereal and cartoons while his parents slept in. He was seven when Fan, who was two, joined him to eat cereal. Then he would fill two bowls and they would eat and watch cartoons. Everything changed when their mother died.

Ben rolled toward the bare gray-brown branches shuddering in the gusts outside his red curtained window. The movement disrupted the usual path of his thoughts. He reached for the leather-bound volume that had become his anchor. There was no more time for bitterness. He’d given years to that effort with emptiness in return. It took a bolt of lightning to wake him up; he probably wouldn’t survive another jolt like that.

Ugh. That was bad even to him.

This morning reminded him of being a boy, of hopping out of bed because something great could happen. Especially at Christmastime.

How it was possible he couldn’t say, outside of some genetic miracle, but Fred’s twins, Avery and Riley, six years old with blonde hair and clear brown eyes, were the very image of Fan. The thought of her brought an ache and a smile. How she would have loved the girls.

Four weeks before Christmas and the house rattled with bells and smelled of evergreen. Excitement fed wonderment. He found himself looking forward to the twenty-fifth of December with more awe than he believed himself capable of.

Phrases from “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” jumbled up with lines from “O LittleTown of Bethlehem” bubbled out as he showered and shaved.

His heart expanded when he saw the family crowded around the breakfast table. His family. “Do they still go caroling on Christmas Eve around here?”

“Yes!” the twins replied in unison. “Our church goes out every year.”

“It will be on the twenty-third this year,” Melody announced after scrolling through her phone.

“How is Tim?” Fred looked up from his coffee.

“Tom tells me he’s recovering nicely. He’ll be up in time for Christmas.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind picking up the girls today?” Melody glanced from her phone to receive his nod.

“I’ll be there.”

Ben trod the carefully tended bricks toward the double-doors of the old white church. Concrete steps fanned out in the center. Black iron-pipe handrails gleamed in the winter sun.

Arched stained-glass windows gently lit the vestibule. He breathed in the stillness. The last time he’d been here, he’d sat in the front pew. His mother lay in a wooden box; his father was encased in white-hot anger.

“Good people all . . . this Christmas time . . .”

The strong, clear, mezzo-soprano tones of Silverbelle pulled him into the sanctuary. Eyes closed, she stood there on the altar. She wore blue jeans and an Aran sweater. Barely five feet tall, Silver’s voice filled the sanctuary without electronic amplification.

Enchanted, he allowed the music to surround him. His heart rose in praise. Fan had sung the same song. How different his life would have been if only he’d stayed.

The first three pews were filled with children of various sizes. His nieces were among them, blonde heads bobbing in conversation with each other and friends beside them.

Suddenly conspicuous, Ben slipped into the last pew. When the final note resonated in the room, Silver opened her eyes and saw him. A firm hand landed on his shoulder.

“Welcome, brother,” said a man with sparkly brown eyes and a wide-toothed grin.

Ben rose and extended his hand, “Pastor Jason, it’s been a long time.”

Jason’s handshake became more vigorous as recognition grew in his eyes. “Ebenezer Stack. It has been a long time. How have you been?”

“Well. I’ve been well. I’m here to pick up my nieces.” He nodded toward the children exiting the pews with energy.

“They look just like her, don’t they?”

Ben’s heart gladdened that someone else remembered Fan too. “Yes.”

Jason stepped back to make room for the children but kept his sharp attention on Ben. “How long you stayin’ in town?”

The twins arrived at his waist dragging Silver by the hand.

“Through Christmas.”

“You should come to the tree lighting then,” Jason said with a smile.

Silver extricated herself when the twins attached themselves to his hands. It was obvious she was waiting for an opening to...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.12.2017
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-004270-6 / 0000042706
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-004270-5 / 9780000042705