Edward Hummersmith was not having a good day.

It was Christmas Eve. He hated Christmas. Ever since he had agreed to do a bit of work for that damned Spirit of Conscience, he had hated Christmas. Sure, it had been fun frightening the old man, Scrooge, and showing him the error of his ways while being the Ghost of Christmas Past. But then, after that, it got pretty boring.

“There’ll be lots more work afterward for us; you’ll see. People wanting redemption are in high supply,” was Conscience’s frequent tirade.

And so they waited. And waited. And waited some more.

The problem was, as the world around them aged, no one believed in ghosts anymore. The Ghost of Christmas Present was the first to fade away, as if he had never existed in the first place. Then the Ghost of Christmas Future had simply wandered into a field filled to the brim with fog, his black robes billowing like the very wind itself. He was never seen again.

The Ghost of Conscience, that old coward, had stopped answering his door and never came to visit. Soon, he, too, faded away, as people’s consciousnesses were bombarded with all manner of temptation; the idea of what was good and what was bad began to blur. And so he, too, was gone.

Edward had wandered, as ghosts often do, for a time. He had haunted many different houses, many different locales. He had scoured the streets of Paris, screeched along the mountains of the Himalayas, and even frightened a few school children in a boarding house in Britain. All for naught. As the Ghost of Christmas Past, his life, or afterlife, as it were, had no meaning. Now, he was just a regular ghost, hard up for a bit of fun.

But there wasn’t much fun to be had for a ghost who had seen and done everything. Even at Christmas, especially at Christmas. Every year, when it began to snow, he would watch as people put up colored lights and dragged trees indoors to dress them up like cheap whores in lipstick and rhinestones. Every year, he watched as people ran to and fro, carolling and purchasing, buying and singing.

It was no different this year. He stood under the light of a lamp post, unseen by any of the passersby, as people ran about preparing for their last minute Christmas Eve plans, drove by on their way to their families for dinner, or nestled down in front of the fire, a Norman Rockwell painting behind glass.

Edward sighed. When he had been the Ghost of Christmas Past, he had experienced a sense of belonging to the season, to the holiday. Now he belonged to no one but himself. This depressed him even more.

Wanting to distract himself from his doldrums, he rose high into the air, the Christmas lights shining through him as if he were indeed made of light itself. He found himself tracing a well-worn pathway through the harsh winter breeze. He wondered if Kendel had any family to spend Christmas with.

Edward knew that what he was doing could be called one of two things: haunting or stalking. However, since he was no longer alive, he supposed it was haunting. He had visited Kendel every day for the past year, and Kendel had only grown more beautiful to Edward’s eyes. If Edward stopped to think about it, he was in love with Kendel.

Edward sighed. He was in love with a mortal he had never even talked to. He was the former Ghost of Christmas Past and hated Christmas. Yep, things were sure shaping up for him.

Sliding in through Kendel’s window, he stopped for a moment, awestruck at what he saw. He had visited Kendel’s apartment only the day before, but the place had been transformed. Where before there had been a sparely furnished living room, there now stood a large, green Christmas tree that almost touched the ceiling. The tree was decorated with bells and tinsel, bobs of color and shine. Presents were already under the tree. A quick look showed that all of the presents were for Kendel from other people. His man crush was obviously a well loved person.

Boughs of evergreen graced each doorway, and other ornaments had been placed here and there around the apartment, adding their sheen to the brightness of Kendel’s small one-bedroom apartment.

In short, Edward had stepped into a Christmas wonderland. It was as if he had stepped into something from Scrooge’s past or his own. When Kendel walked into the room carrying two glasses of red wine, Edward’s heart sank. Not only was he surrounded by a season he hated, the man he loved had company. Of course he would, Edward thought. He was tall, muscular, blue eyed, and had blond hair that fell to his shoulders. Who wouldn’t love this man?

“I was wondering when you’d get here,” Kendel said.

Edward wondered if he was speaking to someone else, someone who would walk into the room behind him at any moment. He watched as Kendel put one glass of wine on the table in front of him.

Edward sighed. He was kidding himself; he would never be able to touch Kendel, let alone have his love in return. He looked at the glass of wine and waited for the other man to show himself.

That didn’t happen however. Instead, Kendel looked right at him. “Well,” he said, “are you going to stand there all day looking at the glass of wine, or at you going to share a bit of Christmas cheer with me?”