Christmas Spirit 1

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Story notes: This story contains graphic descriptions of love (carnal) and lust between siblings. If that's not your thing, I have other stories that you may prefer. Thanks for reading!

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My younger sister, Noel, was born on Christmas Day. I've always felt bad for her because it's almost like she doesn't even get a birthday. I try to make an extra effort to ensure that she gets a special day. We usually do something together the day after Christmas. I started this when she was 8 or 9 and we've been at it for like a decade now.

She turned 18 this Christmas. I turned 20 a month later. Each year - for a month - she's a year younger than me. Due to the closeness of our ages - and the time I take to make her birthday special - we've grown very close.

Every year, I ask her for two or three ideas for things that she would like to do - just her and me - for her birthday. We've gone rock-climbing, skiing, and visited a zoo (not recommended; it was freezing). One year, she even convinced me to join the Polar Plunge group. I assure you that will never happen again. She was wrapped in her towel, shivering like crazy, laughing her ass off at me. I'm not even sure that she wanted to do it herself - she just wanted to see my reaction. She knows I'm always cold and she just wanted to torment me. I love her dearly, though, and would do anything for her.

This year, one of her suggestions was to camp out in a deserted house at the edge of town that is rumored to be haunted. I had no real desire to sleep outside in December, but I liked her other two options even less.

She's been on a ghost kick lately and I think she intentionally chose alternatives that would force me into tracking down all of my old Boy Scout shit so that I could make a valid attempt at getting us through the night in a windowless husk of a mansion without freezing to death.

Fortunately, as Christmas approached, the forecast suggested that we might have a muddy Christmas - rather than a snowy one. Christmas without snow was fine with me. Don't get me wrong, I loved looking out of the picture window at our house and spotting a family of deer foraging in the freshly fallen fluff. We live at the edge of town - not all that far from the haunted mansion - so we frequently see wildlife around our home. Snow, however, always seems to make a mess of traffic and - with all of the running around we do - I'd rather just skip it.

Christmas Day arrived, and I double-checked all of the items I had loaded onto the deer-hunting travois that I had borrowed from Dad - so that we wouldn't have to carry anything more than a backpack.

I sat around the front room - with my parents, my older sister (Autumn), and Noel. We had spent Christmas Eve at my Mom's parent's home - and Dad's parents would be visiting later. That morning, it would just be us.

We were old enough now that Dad and Mom mostly just gave us gift cards and let us pick out whatever we wanted. Mom still got us some little stocking stuffers, though, and it was fun to see what she came up with. Sometimes, my mother had a pretty zany sense of humor. Noel inherited a bit of that from her. She could be ornery as cat-shit one minute and as cute as a kitten the next.

"Where are you two going for your birthday?" Autumn asked our sister.

"We're spending the night in the Welter Mansion," Noel reported proudly.

"Shit!" Autumn gasped.

"Language ...," Mom chided her.

"You're seriously staying overnight?" Autumn asked Noel.

Noel nodded, grinning broadly. Autumn looked at me for confirmation. I shrugged and offered her a goofy grin.

"I get your clothes if the ghosts kill you," Autumn said.

Noel just laughed at her.

"You're seriously staying there, Janus?" she asked me.

I've never been overly fond of my name but - by now - you know that my parents weren't too inventive when it came to selecting our monikers.

"I think I have enough stuff packed to keep us from freezing to death," I told her.

"I'm sure the place is sound enough to protect you from most of the elements," Dad said confidently. "Find a quiet corner and bed down. You've got the good sleeping bags packed, right?"

I nodded.

Even without the little stove that I had packed - complete with firepan (to prevent any possibility of us burning the place down) - we should stay plenty warm. I had packed some foot-warmers as well. No matter how good my sleeping-bag was, my feet always got cold.

I had also packed a tent that should be big enough for the two of us to stretch out and still have room for everything that I had brought along. I had no clue what the inside of this place looked like and - if we ended up having to camp in a room with no roof - I still wanted to be covered.

Honestly, I had way more stuff packed than we should ever need. I'd even thrown a camping shovel and a small pick-axe in. It was only about a mile to the deserted mansion and the travois would make hauling it all almost no chore.

~~~

After presents, we ate lunch and then played games until Grandma and Grandpa Smythe arrived.

Dad met them at their car. His mother didn't need to take his arm, but he offered anyway, and she accepted. He motioned for me to help Grandpa with the gifts.

Once again, they would just be little token presents - and more gift cards. I was hoping for cards that I could stack together to maybe buy a new laptop. The one I had now was more than five years old - a relic from high school - and - although it did most of my homework well enough - there were fewer and fewer games that I could run on it.

We ate dinner with my grandparents and then opened gifts. Soon enough, they were out the door and headed for home. Grandpa said the headlights from the cars fucked with his bifocals. My eyes were still good enough that I didn't need glasses - and I was just as happy about that.

Noel had glasses - which pissed her off - but I thought she looked cuter with them. That didn't seem to help her attitude much though. I stopped mentioning it the first time she slugged me in the arm.

Whenever I caught her pushing them back up on her face - and she saw me notice - I got scowled at - or she would stick her tongue out at me - like it was my fault that she had glasses, and I didn't.

I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. Noel came in and stood beside me for a moment. She was wearing a red plaid set of pajamas that made her look like a Canadian lumberjack's kid. I smirked at her. She snarled, tumbled across me, pulled the covers up, and climbed in bed with me.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Do you think it's really haunted?" she inquired, ignoring my query.

"I don't know," I said.

She stuck her feet on my calves. I wasn't wearing pajamas - just a T-shirt and sleep-shorts.

"Fuck, Noel!" I gasped. "Your feet are like ice!"

She snickered at me and worked to keep the soles of her feet on my legs as I struggled to escape. I finally gave up and let her use me for her footwarmer.

She rolled over, placing her back to mine - but keeping her feet pressed against my calves.

"I love you, Janus," she said. "You don't know how much I look forward to our little outings."

"You've mentioned it once or twice," I said.

"I'm sorry I made you do the Polar Plunge," she told me.

"You're a fucking liar," I countered. "You laughed your fucking ass off."

"Language!" Mom yelled down the hall.

We started talking a little quieter after that.

"I think there's really a ghost living there," she said.

"What makes you think that?" I asked.

"Too many people have tried to spend the night and ran away when weird shit started happening," she reported.

"Where'd you hear that?" I inquired.

"There's like a whole blog-thing that this guy wrote about it - some novice ghost-hunter from here in town. People post comments on there when they attempt to stay overnight - reporting how it went. I couldn't find a single one that said they stayed the whole night."

I wasn't sure how to answer my sister - or what to ask next. I didn't really believe in ghosts but that was a little too freaky. I'm as much of a conspiracy theorist as the next person but - that's a lot of peer-review - at least from my limited perspective. Finally, I thought of a question.

"Anybody else try it in December?" I asked.

"I don't think so," she said.

"Maybe the ghost doesn't like the cold," I said.

"Maybe," she replied.

~~~

When I woke up - the next morning - Noel was still in my bed. Sometime, in the middle of the night, she had rolled over. She was snuggled against my back - with her arm across my side - like I was her teddy bear or some shit.

I lay there, quietly for a little bit, but I'd woken up because I had to pee. I tried to slide out from under her arm, but she opened her eyes and looked at me.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To pee," I said. "Why are you still here?"

"I don't know," she said. "Did I bother you?"

"No - but I'm not sure my little sister should be sleeping in my bed," I countered.

"Maybe other people should mind their own business," she retorted.

Noel didn't have her glasses on. Her long dark brown hair was kind of a mess, but she was going to be a very pretty woman.

"What?" she asked.

"You're kind of cute ... when you're asleep," I told her, smirking.

She growled and lunged at me. I quickly rolled off of the bed and raced for the bathroom. I could hear her footfalls - speeding across the floor behind me. I was faster in the straightaways, but she was better in the corners. There was a 50/50 chance of me getting into the bathroom before she slugged me.

I made it, barely. I got the door closed and she punched it instead. Mom yelled at us to stop acting like children.

I made sure the door was locked and took care of my morning routine. She gave up and left after a few minutes.

When I came out, she suddenly appeared, and I flinched out of instinct. She laughed.

"Can we head over there after lunch?" she asked.

"What are we going to do for dinner?" I countered.

"Bring something," she said. "You're the Boy Scout."

"Fine," I said.

"You have your hiking boots?" she asked.

"That's what I was planning to wear - in case of nails - why?"

"It snowed," she said.

"What?!" I gasped.

She took off down the hall - towards her room - skipping like an adolescent child. I headed for the nearest window to see if she was lying.

She was not lying.

The good news, at least, was that Dad had a set of skis for the travois. I headed for the camping closet to trade the wheels out for the skis.

~~~

By lunchtime, Noel was driving me crazy. She'd already tried to move up our departure time two more times. I very emphatically informed her that I had just gotten the wheels traded out for skis and that I still hadn't had a chance to dig through the refrigerator to see what we were taking with us to prepare for dinner.

She surprised the hell out of me when she volunteered to take up that task. She gleefully turned and headed towards the kitchen.

"It needs to be something hot," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"We'll be freezing all night," I reminded her. "You'll want warm food in your belly."

She threw me a mock salute and took off - bouncing down the hall.

I returned Dad's tools to the toolbox (after cleaning them first, of course, I'd already learned that lesson). After that, I went to my room and started double-checking my backpack - since it looked like we were going to be leaving way earlier than I had anticipated.

The only good news was that we would arrive with plenty of daylight - giving us time to search through the place to select the best location for us to spend the night.

The one upside of the snow was that it would be easy to tell which rooms had no sky-cover - without even having to look up.

Noel brought a small satchel over and showed me what she had picked out for dinner. She had some ham, some mashed potatoes, some steamed veggies, and some cheese. She had mashed all of it together and made two foil pouches that we'd be able to set on the fire and rotate until they were toasty.

"Wow, Sis," I said. "Very well thought out!"

"Thanks," she said, smiling brightly. "I tried to think about some of the stuff you ate on campouts. We didn't have burgers or brats for the hobo-pouches so I thought the ham might work."

"Did you happen to stick some butter in the bottom - to help keep it from sticking?" I asked.

Her face dropped.

"It'll be fine," I told her. "You've got lots of good stuff in there and I think the potatoes might be buttery enough to compensate. If it get's crusty on the outside, we'll just scoop out the middles and eat that. There will be plenty there. You did really well."

She blushed at my complement.

"Thanks," she said. "I ... I really did try."

"You did well. I think they're gonna turn out just swell. The only thing you could do, right now, to help, would be to double-wrap the pouches in another layer of foil."

"On it!" she yelled, turning to head back towards the kitchen.

"Salt and pepper?"

"I'll add it," she called back. "How much?"

"Don't go crazy - but don't be stingy," I told her.

She disappeared into the kitchen. I headed off to the travois - wanting to go over everything one more time. I also wanted to make sure the camp stove that I had packed would work with the foil pouches that Noel was preparing.

Fifteen minutes later, I decided that what I had would do, if not quite be perfect. Foil pouches were better over charcoal or wood fires. The camp stove was not ideal, but I thought I could use my stew pot (turned upside down) to make kind of an oven. I just needed to figure out how to put the hobo-meals inside of the thing ...

I stopped in my tracks, completed a mental (and physical) 180, and headed back to the camping closet. I grabbed the charcoal, a chimney lighter, and a Dutch oven big enough to hold Noel's foil-packs.

I loaded those items onto my sled and turned to find Noel returning with the pouches. I opened the lid on the Dutch oven, tucked them inside, and closed it again.

"We're good?" she asked.

"Should be," I replied.

Mom called us to lunch. I dropped my backpack by the travois, and we headed for the dining room.

Lunch was mostly leftovers, like always. Mom had made a little cake for my sister. It wasn't her birthday anymore but - after enough years of Noel and I planning activities for the day-after - Mom usually tried to have a small cake for her. She blew out the 18 candles with her eyes closed.

"I hope you wished for no ghosts," I said.

"Not!" she snapped, swinging her fist at my shoulder.

I had anticipated her reaction - and was already giggling like a goofy kid - as I leapt from my chair and raced around the table - with Mom yelling at the two of us to knock it off. At least she was smiling. She knew it was all in fun. Dad was grinning as well. Autumn just shook her head at us - her immature younger siblings.

As we ate, each of the family members once again asked Noel if this was really what she wanted to do. I'm not sure they realized that asking again and again just made her that much more determined. Based on her description of the research that she had done planning for this trip, I knew beyond any doubt that this was exactly what she wanted. I might not be looking forward to it - but Noel certainly was.

~~~

Mom made a pot of hot chocolate, poured it into one of Dad's old Thermoses, and sent it with us as we headed out of the door.

Noel had a snow suit on. I had on a pair of insulated coveralls that I used for hunting or cold days when I expected to be outdoors.

I couldn't do anything but groan as my little sister threw herself to the ground in the middle of the yard and made a snow angel. I kept walking.

Once she was done, she raced after me, collided with me (wrapping me in a hug), and kissed my cheek. I turned back and looked at her childish creation. I couldn't help but grin at her youthful innocence.

"I love you, Janus," she said again. "Thanks for this."

"I love you, too, reindeer butt," I said.

She growled and slugged me - and then raced ahead - skipping and prancing like I imagined Rudolph would - when he wasn't busy pulling Santa's sleigh.

Thankfully, it looked like her snow suit had shed most of the snow that she'd picked up while making her angel-art. She wouldn't feel the cold until she stopped prancing around - but I worried that she was taking a chance of getting snow inside her suit - which would cause risks of hypothermia later.

Noel bounded off without a care in the world. I followed behind, dragging everything but the kitchen sink.

~~~

A little over a mile later, she was a little less bouncy and was calmly walking by my side. Either she'd finally burned off her excess energy or she was beginning to seriously think about the ghost that she planned to meet in the next few minutes - or hours.

I wondered if it was true that spectral creatures really only appeared at midnight. A few paces later, Noel asked me that very question - almost word for word.

"I don't know," I said. "I'd prefer to be asleep by then."

Five minutes later, we arrived in front of the place. It was massive. I'm sure Noel could tell me how many rooms the structure held. All I knew was that it was bigger than any other private residence that I had ever seen.

The main floor of the place was a half-dozen feet above the yard. There was a wide staircase that led up to the front doors. The stairs were in far better condition than I had expected. As we started our climb, I realized why that was so - they were stone. As I looked around, I realized that almost all of the exterior of the building was stone as well. This place must have cost a fortune to build.

The front double-doors were standing open - no doubt left that way when previous adventurers had run, screaming, from the place in the middle of the night.

As we stepped inside, I saw that snow had blown in from the windows - almost all of which had been broken out by kids with more rocks and free time than sense. I liked skipping stones across the pond as much as the next person - but pitching rocks through windows - even those in vacant buildings - rubbed me the wrong way. People had no respect for the property of others.

As I thought about it, I wondered if our intrusion into the place would be considered vandalism by some. I had purposefully brought everything that we would need - and - by virtue of one of the presiding principles of Boy Scouts - fully intended to leave the place in better condition than I found it. When we left, no one would ever be able to tell that we had been here. "Leave No Trace" was another principle that resonated with me. The only thing anyone would find would be footprints - in the dust or the snow - and those would fade soon enough.

The rooms at the front of the house were quickly eliminated from my list of potential camping locations. The snow had, apparently, been carried in by a wind from the north - and - since the front of the mansion faced that direction - the floor of every room along the front of the house was covered in snowdrifts.

We made our way through the rooms on the main floor. On the south wall, at the middle, were the kitchens. In my head, I noted this as my first choice out of what I had seen so far. There were fewer windows and - of those - a larger percentage were still intact.

We found the stairs to the basement and Noel turned to look at me.

"Do you know what floors they reported the ghost - or ghosts on?" I asked.

She shook her head, no.

"It might just be me, but I'm a little nervous about any ghost that would live in the basement," I said. "The more practical reason for avoiding the basement is that - if I were an animal seeking refuge - that's probably where I would go."