Happy New Year!

Death is Not a Pony Farm: A Christmas Fable

Ayanna did not have high hopes for the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland’s holiday party. Having attended 15 of them already, she knew she should expect uncomfortable shoes, being forced to speak foreign languages to dozens of drunk adults who thought they were extras in a James Bond movie, and the misery of spending the whole four hours pretending to be a normal person. But when seven penguins waddled into the Grand Hotel ballroom, she knew the night would end in disaster.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t been warned. A spirit she had nicknamed the Ghost of Christmas Shopping, since he had attached himself to her in the Loeb department store while she was trying to choose a new black necktie for her father, told her that the Grand Hotel would be swarming with ghosts.
“This is Europe,” she muttered, fidgeting with the earpiece of her cell phone, hoping any nosy observers would think she was talking to someone alive. She lived with a constant fear of being mistaken for a lunatic. Appearing sane was her number one obsession, well above her dream of meeting Usher and finding ways to watch American TV online. “We’re outnumbered ten to one.”
“Americans?” asked the ghost in an impeccable Southern accent. He claimed to be a native of Savannah, Georgia named Ambrose de Beauregard, but Ayanna knew most ghosts would say anything to get a medium’s attention—all the English-speaking dead in Bern knew she was from Georgia. And as for calling him Ambrose, she refused on principle. Her grandmother claimed that it strengthened them, and strengthening ghosts was the last thing Ayanna wanted to do.
“The living,” she whispered, holding up two apparently identical ties to the light. Her father only wore plain black neckties, so she wanted to pick a nice one, but she wasn’t entirely sure what the difference was between a 55 franc necktie and one that cost twice as much.
“Well, that’s hardly surprising,” the Ghost of Christmas Shopping said, lurking at her left shoulder. He had died in his early twenties, probably from consumption—he was elegantly pale, even for a ghost, and he wore a nice gray suit Ayanna’s father would have liked. He would not have liked the way the ghost stood so close to Ayanna. If he was alive, it would have made Ayanna uncomfortable. But it had been many years since Ayanna had been frightened by a ghost. “Switzerland was the most war-torn country in Europe until the Treaty of Vienna. An awful lot of people have died here.”
“I noticed,” Ayanna agreed. Their lovely house with a view of the river Aare and the domes of the Curia, had at least twenty. Her father said it was the best he could do—the other places he checked out had so many ghosts he had a hard time hiding the family peculiarity from the real estate agent, and he was better at ignoring ghosts than Ayanna would ever be.
“Get the Armani,” the Ghost of Christmas Shopping recommended. “The black is much richer, and it’s a better grade of silk.”
“And why should I listen to you?”
“I graduated from the best school of fine art in Europe!” he exclaimed, drawing the attention of the other wandering ghosts. There was a whole family a few aisles away, mother, father and little girl, all wearing nightgowns. A fire? The plague? Stabbed in their beds by soldiers? In Switzerland, Ayanna rarely found out. She was careful not to speak German or French in front of any dead people. Once the dead figured out you could see them, hear them, and even halfway understand them, they would never leave you alone. Like Ambrose, the Ghost of Christmas Shopping. He glared at the other ghosts and barked something in an oddly accented German that Ayanna now recognized as 16th century Deutsch.
The dead woman responded saucily, Ambrose said something obnoxious, and the father ushered the whole family away, towards men’s shirts. Ayanna didn’t know what happened in the real afterlife, where the vast majority of people went when they died, but she thought it had to be better than spending eternity wandering around department stores that used to be your apartment.
She took Ambrose’s advice about the tie, which apparently encouraged him, because he turned up in her bedroom that night while she was talking on Skype with her ex-boyfriend in D.C. He was pretending that they still had a relationship, but Ayanna knew that it wouldn’t survive her dad’s two year posting to Switzerland. She felt pretty lucky that she had had a whole year in the U.S., a reward, she guessed, for the seriously stressful nine months they had spent in South Africa before that.
“I’ve got to go,” she told James, when Ambrose started jabbering at her. “I need to get some sleep.”
“That’s cool. I’ve got to go back to class in a minute,” he said. He smiled and winked into the camera. Ayanna had to laugh—if he had been using his laptop in the privacy of his bedroom, it would have been a very different goodbye. But by the time he got home from school after basketball practice, Ayanna really would be fast asleep.
She blew him a kiss and closed her laptop, then turned on Ambrose.
“The next time you interrupt me while I’m talking I’ll exorcise you,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
He rolled his eyes. “If exorcising spirits was at all effective, do you imagine we’d be talking now?”
Ayanna’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what sort of crappy mediums you get around here, but when I exorcise a ghost, he stays exorcised. I’ve been getting rid of you guys since I was old enough to hold a bell, book and candle.”
“Really and truly?” His eyes gleamed.
“Want to find out?”
“I suspect that I will find out, though not perhaps in the way that you imagine. May I introduce you to a friend?”
“Dude, I do not want you bringing all the dead English speakers in Switzerland to my bedroom,” Ayanna said firmly.
“Just the one,” he promised. “It really is vitally important.”
“How vital could it possibly be? You’re already dead. Not much more can happen to you.”
“There is no need to remind me,” he said, sounding insulted. “I’m not likely to forget, am I? But this is vital for your safety, not mine.”
Ayanna opened up her computer again and checked her email. Nothing new. “Ghosts can’t hurt the living,” she told Ambrose.
“Perhaps not ordinarily, although I’ve known a ghost who haunted a certain clairvoyant morning, noon, and night, until the poor woman finally perished from lack of sleep. It is always complicated when the dead fall in love with the living.”
“No joke,” Ayanna agreed. “That kind of thing never ends well.”
“Of course, life is not a pony farm, and neither is death. Perhaps it’s worth the risk?” He grinned hopefully.
Ayanna just raised her eyebrows. This was not a conversation she was willing to have with a ghost.
“Regardless, you must let me introduce you to Tanya,” Ambrose begged. “It truly is important.”
“I don’t need an introduction,” said an ominously familiar voice. “Ayanna and I already know each other.”
“Tonya de Graaf!” Ayanna exclaimed, turning around. Ayanna had not seen her since her days in Johannesburg, but she couldn’t fail to recognize Tonya de Graaf, her older sister Aiesha’s former best friend. She had died in a hot pink cocktail dress and gorgeous pair of silver Jimmy Choo stilettos Ayanna would not have been able to walk in. Tonya could not have been older than 20 when she died, since that’s how old Aiesha was, and they were same age—well, they had been, anyway. Aiesha had lost track of Tonya as soon as they moved, and Tonya could have died any time since. It was tragic, of course, even though Ayanna had always hated Tonya, ever since they first met at an Ambassadorial Tea Ball. Tonya had teased her about wearing cheap shoes from H & M so horribly that Ayanna almost cried. Mrs. De Graaf was so embarrassed she took Tonya home and forbid her to talk at the next big embassy event. Typical Tonya. Still, she had clearly died horribly—her pink dress was drenched in blood, still a livid red. The only bright side was that she would be wearing her favorite shoes for eternity.
“Hello, Ayanna. I see your taste in clothes hasn’t improved.”
“At least I can change mine.”
“Ha ha. I still look better dead than you do alive.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Ambrose said, shaking his head. “Now is no time for repartee.”
“What are you doing here?” Ayanna asked curiously. “Are you the Ghost of Christmas Dresses or something? Come to bring fashion advice from beyond the grave?”
“You are so insensitive,” she snarled. “I didn’t come for you. I came to help Lucas.”
“Lucas Kane?” Ayanna asked. She had met him at some embassy function. He was the son of the British Ambassador, and possibly the most boring seventeen year old she had ever met. He was cute, though, with messy brown hair, deep blue eyes, and the adorable English accent. But not cute enough to make up for his personality—all he talked about was soccer and getting into Oxford. Yawn.
“Yes, Lucas Kane. He’s going to the American Embassy Christmas party with his whole family.”
“So?”
“So they’re clairvoyants. And there’s five of them. The Japanese ambassador’s wife and her twins are also clairvoyants. Plus you and your father. That makes ten.”
“So?” Ayanna hoped she sounded blasé, but she was, in fact, amazed. She had never met another clairvoyant who wasn’t a blood relative. At least, not knowingly.
“Don’t you know anything?” Tonya tossed blood-flecked blond hair over her shoulder, an expression of annoyance. “When ten or more clairvoyants are gathered in one place, the ghosts there become more powerful. They can move things, sometimes even make themselves visible to ordinary people.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Tonya,” Ayanna said thoughtfully. “I’ve been to family reunions where lots of mediums were in one room, and I never saw ghosts do anything unusual.”
“In the U.S., right?”
“Sure.”
“Get with it, then. You’re not in Kansas anymore. The ghosts here have been learning tricks from each other for thousands of years. They know more than the ghosts of Podunk, Arkansas, or wherever you’re from.”
“Georgia,” Ayanna reminded her. “I still don’t see what the big deal is.”
“You don’t know about the fire?”
“What fire?”
Even Ambrose looked surprised. “You haven’t heard of the Great Fire of 1922?”
“I thought there was a great flood in ’22.”
“There was. During the flood, the old zoo and everyone who lived on the riverfront was evacuated. They packed them all into the Grand Hotel, as it was the largest building in town at the time.
“It was so vast that, despite all the extra visitors, they still had the Flower Ball as scheduled in the main ballroom during the height of the flooding. It was the grandest social event of the year. More than three thousand candles burned in the hundreds of candelabras in the room.”
“Let me guess,” Ayanna said. “One fell over?”
Ambrose nodded. “Seven hundred and forty people died, not to mention about one hundred animals from the zoo.”
“So hundreds of angry ghosts with the power to move objects are coming to the Christmas party?”
“Yes,” Tonya said.
“Yowza.” Ayanna could think of any number of ways the night could end badly, ranging from hundreds of terrified guests to another devastating fire. “So what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Obviously you have to skip the party,” Tonya said.
“No can do. My father would kill me.”
“Surely if you explain the situation—” Ambrose began.
“Surely nothing. He is the director of operations at the embassy. This is the embassy holiday party. I have to go. I have to go two hours early, in fact, to help decorate the ballroom. And if I tried to explain why I can’t go, I’d have to admit I’ve been talking to ghosts, which I am not allowed to do.
“He wouldn’t believe me anyway. He thinks all ghosts are liars. Why don’t you explain the situation to Lucas? He’s English. It doesn’t matter if he comes.”
“I can’t appear to Lucas!” Tonya sounded scandalized. “Not looking like this!”
“What about you?” Ayanna asked Ambrose.
“He also thinks ghosts are liars.”
“Most of them are,” Ayanna pointed out. “I mean, you aren’t really from Georgia, are you?”
“You impugn my honor,” he said, holding a hand over his spectral heart.
“That isn’t an answer,” Ayanna said, eyes narrowed. “Come on, guys. It’s an embassy Christmas party. Anybody who has already gone through the security clearance is coming. So we have to come up with a plan.”
“What can you possibly do against hundreds of ghosts?” Ambrose asked.
“Good question.”

Ayanna had dared to hope that Tonya and Ambrose were wrong about the Grand Hotel. It had been completely rebuilt after the fire, so perhaps the ghosts had left? She didn’t see any while pinning up bunting and wrestling with the flotillas of helium-filled balloons that were de rigueur at this sort of party. She had added decorations of her own to the small stage in the center of the room. When the official decorator raised her eyebrows, Ayanna told her that the embassy’s event director had put them there. When the event director asked, Ayanna blamed it on the decorator.
Half an hour after the party began, the spectral penguins wandered in, and Ayanna knew she was in trouble. She could smell their sharp, salty smell, and even she had never smelled a ghost before. They were soon joined by a pair of Indian elephants, a cheetah and a giraffe. The giraffe’s head caused the chandelier to sway gently when it bumped it.
“It’s starting,” Ambrose said, appearing at Ayanna’s right elbow. She almost dropped her glass of champagne. Usually sneaking a couple of drinks was the highlight of embassy parties, but she was too nervous to do more than sip it now and then. Fortunately, she was pretending to fiddle with the loudspeakers, so no one was paying her any attention.
“I noticed. But you aren’t supposed to be here! If the spell works like it should—”
“I know,” he said. “I will leave, and soon. But I wanted to tell you that if things should go awry, and the ghosts manage to set the building alight again, which is almost certainly their aim, and you do expire, I would quite look forward to, ah, get to know you better.”
“Um, thanks, Ambrose. I think.” If she could have touched him, she might have kissed his cheek. “Now get lost.”
He smiled, saluted, and clicked his heels smartly. Then he disappeared. Ayanna went back to mumbling the spell quietly to herself and pretending to check the loudspeaker’s cords. She slowly realized that someone was watching her—all the little hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. At first she assumed it was a ghost, so she tried to ignore it. But it didn’t go away. Finally she put her glass down on top of the speaker, stood up, and looked around. Lucas Kane was standing ten feet away, at one end of the hors d’oeuvres table, staring at her. He was a ghastly white, almost as pale as Ambrose.
She sidled over. “Hi, Lucas. Are you okay?”
“I’m . . . I am. . .” He gulped. “Did I see you talking to a ghost?”
“Yes. I’m a medium, like you.” It was a relief to say it—Ayanna had never admitted it to a living person before.
“Like. . . me?” He tried to look baffled.
“Yes, like you. Tonya de Graaf told me.”
“I never told Tonya that!”
“She probably heard it from another ghost.”
“Another. . . ghost?”
Ayanna sighed. This wasn’t as boring as most of her conversations with Lucas, but it wasn’t something she really had time for.
“I saw Tonya last night. She doesn’t look as good as she used to, so she doesn’t want to see you. Were you two going out?”
“We were just friends.”
Given the look of horror on his face, Ayanna wasn’t sure she believed him, but it didn’t really matter.
“Have you noticed anything unusual tonight?” she asked. “Other than the animals, I mean.”
“The fact that half the guests are dead? Yes, I noticed,” he snapped.
“But they haven’t done anything strange? And yes, I mean strange for ghosts.”
“They’ve been behaving like guests at a ball,” he said. “Some of their dresses are rather old fashioned, but no, they haven’t done anything strange.”
Ayanna sighed with relief. If the worst thing that happened was invited guests catching an occasional glimpse of uninvited guests, she wouldn’t bother with the plan. Even if someone did see the penguins, they could always claim that terrorists had spiked the punch with LSD or something.
Then she saw a man in a vintage dinner jacket trip a server. His tray of champagne flutes went flying into a small group of living ladies, splashing them all. Their screams drowned out the string quartet playing in the corner.
“That is not good,” Lucas murmured. Ayanna watched in horror as a white-haired woman in singed pink gown kicked one of the legs of the hors d’oeuvre table, sending food crashing to the floor. Across the room, Ayanna’s father’s chin dropped in abject shock, but he clearly had no idea what to do.
Soon the room was in chaos—draperies were falling to the floor, the chandeliers all swinging, guests stumbling around when shoved by people they couldn’t see. The living guests were still trying to pretend that everything was perfectly normal, but the hum of nervous whispers was loud as a hive of angry bees. Ayanna raced around the room, blowing out candles, aided by Lucas. When he headed for the single candle burning on the stage, next to a leather-bound copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and a bell Ayanna had stolen from the choir loft of St. Ursula’s, Ayanna stopped him.
“I need that one,” she said.
“Whatever for? You’re not. . . you’re not going to do something, are you? Something that will reveal. . .”
“I have to,” she said, cutting him off.
“You cannot, under any circumstances, reveal yourself! They’ll lock you away in the bin!”
She repressed a shudder. “I don’t have a choice.” She raced onto the stage, picked up the microphone and cleared her throat.
“Um, hi, everybody, and welcome to the U.S. Embassy Holiday Party.” When she paused, the room was absolutely silent. Even the monkeys swinging from the chandeliers stopped to watch her. “I wanted to share a special tradition from where I come from.”
Ayanna could see her father weaving through the crowd towards her, hoping to stop her before she could do anything embarrassing. But it was too late. She picked up the bell and rang it ten times, the sound filling the vast ballroom. Then she scooped up the big, heavy book and slammed it shut. The sound echoed in the silence. Then she picked up the candle and said,
“By bell, book and candle,
By candle, book and bell.
I send every spirit in this room,
Straight to heaven or to hell.”
She repeated herself in German and French before blowing out the candle and dropping it on the floor. As it fell, a powerful wind gusted through the room, sweeping all the resident spirits away—where exactly, Ayanna didn’t care, as long as they didn’t come back. After the wind extinguished itself, the guests still stood there, in complete silence. Ayanna noticed that her father’s face had turned purple.
Then someone started to clap. Searching the crowd, Ayanna soon saw it was Lucas.
“Good show!” he shouted. “Brilliant entertainment!”
The people closest to him began clapping too. Not understanding what was going on around you was a major part of embassy life. By the time you figured out the local culture you were sent someplace even more foreign. So embassy types were always happy to go along with whatever seemed to be happening.
Soon the entire room was cheering. Ayanna curtseyed, picked up the candle, and scampered off the stage. Lucas handed her a glass of champagne, brushing her fingers before he let go.
“You were magnificent,” he said, beaming at her. “You are certainly the bravest clairvoyant I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.”
Ayanna downed the champagne in one gulp.
“I take it you were successful,” Ambrose said, suddenly appearing next to Lucas.
“Why isn’t he in hell?” Lucas asked, refusing to even glance at Ambrose.
“Perhaps you ought to go to hell,” Ambrose told him. “There are still ten clairvoyants in the room, so I could send you there!”
Ayanna scanned the crowd for other ghosts who had arrived too late for exorcism. She glimpsed Tonya de Graaf, half hidden by a potted palm, staring poisonously at her.
Ayanna sighed. At the very least, this would be more interesting than most embassy parties.