Chapter Text
Christmas in LA is free of snow, but not of spirit. Between the lit up palm trees, the glamorous shop displays all over town, the Feliz Navidad playing on every radio station, and the host of Christmas music and decorations all over Los Feliz high school, Christmas is pretty much unavoidable.
Inescapable, to Julie’s way of thinking. This year there will be no Rose Molina delicately placing strands of tinsel on the tree, no mother making eggnog, no mom and dad arguing over who makes the best cinnamon cookies.
In short, no mom at all.
It all grates on her nerves. Julie’s mom loved Christmas with a passion. She would mash up plantains instead of potatoes, her sister would bring over the tostones and the rice and peas, and they would roast up a pork shoulder and grill some shrimp. They would sing carols and hang lights and eat too much and play piano and put The Messiah on Ray's old record player during the present unwrapping. Christmas without Rose Molina is unthinkable. Almost as unthinkable as music without Rose Molina.
Julie won’t do it. Every light feels like a jolt, reminding her that her mother won’t get to enjoy it. Every song is a wound, since her mother won’t be singing it. And every “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” said by someone who either doesn’t know, or has forgotten, makes a mockery of her quiet, empty house. Ray Molina wanted to decorate this year. Carlos wanted to get a tree. Julie couldn’t imagine doing either. Not without her mom. She finally gave in on the tree for her brother’s sake, but coming home to the dark outside of her house perfectly suited her mood.
No light display. No music. No Christmas insulting the memory of her mother, simply by continuing to happen without her.
---
Finally classes were over and she was looking at fifteen blissful days of no school where she could hide out from the world. Julie loaded up her backpack with books, declined Flynn’s offer to go out for a milkshake, declined Flynn’s offer to hang out, and finally, exasperated, declined Flynn’s offer to share a ride home.
“C’mon, underachiever,” Flynn teased, “don’t make me go home all by myself, and at Christmas, too!”
Julie froze in the process of slinging her pack over her shoulder and her jaw jutted out. She slowly turned to face her best friend, who was biting her lower lip, clearly already regretting mentioning Christmas. “I’m not doing Christmas this year, Flynn,” she said quietly. “I thought I’d made that perfectly clear.”
“So that’s fine! You can ignore Christmas if you want. Let’s just ignore it together,” Flynn begged. “Come home with me and we’ll make the least Christmas-sy snack I can think of--maybe pizza rolls and Doritos or something, and have a sketching session--”
She cut herself off this time. Sketching sessions were another sore point. They had always sketched together--to music. Music that Julie wasn’t making any more. Music that Julie was barely listening to.
“Leave. Me. Alone.” Julie said. “I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. Anything. You celebrate Christmas in your way and let me celebrate it in mine.”
“But you just said you weren’t going to celebrate it!”
“Let me leave it alone then,” Julie crossed her arms and stared down her nose at Flynn. “Christmas now is just a bunch of people buying stuff they normally wouldn’t buy and giving it to other people who would have probably preferred something else. Oh, and a bunch of strangers mouthing ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Merry Christmas’ without having the SLIGHTEST idea of what’s going on in someone’s life. Totally meaningless.”
Julie watched her friend’s hopeful expression fall into a dejected frown. Part of her wanted to apologize, but the angry, resentful part won out. She slammed her locker door, and tried to ignore the inner voice reminding her of just how much she had always loved Christmas herself. That was another world--a world with her mother in it. And right now, that world felt so far away that it was almost alien.
Julie turned and started walking down the hall without a word to her best friend. For once, instead of falling naturally into step with her, Flynn paused. “Call me?” she called instead. “Or, you know what? I’ll call you?”
It was easier to pretend not to hear her. It wasn’t kinder. It was just easier.
---
After dinner that night (spaghetti, again) Julie stood up. “I’ve got studying to do.”
Her dad raised his eyebrows at her. “Studying? It’s your first night of vacation.”
Julie thought quickly. “Dishes, I meant, dishes. I’ll do them. You guys go relax.”
Ray Molina’s blue eyes darkened with worry. “Don’t you want to sit by the tree mija? Maybe play some carols? We can all wash up together, as a family.”
“Dad,” Julie held up her hand. “I–just can’t, okay? I just want to be alone.”
Her dad nodded his understanding, and when Carlos looked like he was about to say something, silenced his son with a single shake of his head. Still, as he watched his daughter’s retreating back, he made a mental note to call Dr. Turner after the holiday.
Julie loaded the plates and silverware into the dishwasher, washed and dried all the pans and put them away, then wiped the counters (which were positively full of crumbs–Carlos must have made a peanut butter sandwich after school), and for good measure, swept the floor. When she couldn’t think of anything else to do to prolong her time in the kitchen, she raced up the stairs as fast as she could, calling out “I’m going to start on my reading now!” She breathed a sigh of relief when she was safely alone in her bedroom, the door closing out the world. Sitting on her bed, she tucked her knees up under her chin, closed her eyes, and swallowed hard.
Another day safely over. Another day without her mother. Another lonely day just like any other–stretching out far into the future, as far as she could imagine. “Mom, I don’t know,” she whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know if I can do it.” She sat there in the dim room as the gray of dusk turned into the dark of night, not turning any lights on, huddled in a sad little ball.
She would never know what time she slipped into sleep.
---
She was awakened by a loud crash to her right. Sitting up in bed, she rubbed at her eyes, which in spite of the glasses still perched on her nose, felt blurry and out of focus. Peering through the darkness, she saw that the window of her room, which had been open when she fell asleep, was now closed tight.
Or so she thought. Right in front of her disbelieving eyes, the window whipped up as if shoved by unseen hands, and an icy cold wind whirled into the room. Julie swung her feet around and stepped out of the bed. “This is Los Angeles,” she muttered crossly. “It was 70 degrees today!” Still, she made her way to the wall and lowered the window, quietly this time so as to avoid waking Carlos or her dad.
About to turn away, she froze. There, in the glass window pane, was the exact image of her dead mother. It was so realistic that Julie involuntarily reached out to hug her, before recoiling in shock. “Mo–” she stopped herself. She stared at the image–before realizing it was just her own reflection after all. She giggled nervously. I guess Dad is right–I look more like Mom every day. She carefully backed up, keeping her gaze locked on the window, not ready to turn away just yet. But the reflection never changed, and upon reaching the bed, she sank down onto her pink floral bedspread with a mixture of relief and disappointment.
Then the music box on her night table started to play–an unfamiliar melody. Julie listened to it for a few moments, then closed it firmly. This was not happening. Part of her, though, wished with all of her heart that it was happening—that maybe somehow, some way, her mother or someone was trying to talk to her. She shut that line of thought down firmly. Hoping for that could only lead to disappointment–and more therapy from Dr. Turner.
Only, then she heard the faint notes of the piano in her mother’s studio…playing the same lovely melody…somehow both plaintive and hopeful at the same time. Julie couldn’t help it. She had to know. She climbed out of bed, stepped into her favorite slippers (the ones with the monster toes on them) and crept down the stairs into the dark living room, stopping at the front doorway to throw a coat over her pajamas. She stepped into the courtyard, and realized that it was much closer to morning than she had thought. The sky was already skimmed through with the tiny wisps of pink and gold that usher in dawn, though the sun was yet to make an appearance. Still, the courtyard was a field of shadow as she made her way to the garage that had been converted into her mother’s music room. Pausing outside the door, she realized that she wasn’t hearing music anymore. Her shoulders fell, and she tasted that same relief and disappointment.
Only to hear the gentle piano again, the rippling notes spilling out into the morning air. Julie choked. She knew that distinctive style–music that was evoked by gentle, loving hands…hands that had caressed that instrument so many times over the years. Hands that Julie knew as she knew her own. Rose Molina had never “played” their piano…Julie always felt like her mother was just the one that had allowed the piano to sing.
She tried to open the door, but her fingers wouldn’t grasp the handle. She couldn’t stand it if some other person was playing that simple and beautiful melody, but neither could she deal with it being her mother.
But she wanted to see her mother more than she wanted to be “normal” in the eyes of her dad, her brother, her therapist, and the world. So finally she opened the door. And there on the piano bench, the first faint glimmers of the sun peeking through her transparent form, sat Julie’s mother, a dahlia in the hair spilling down over her shoulders, a white peasant top billowing around her ghostly arms, and her fingers skimming over the keys.
She stopped playing, and smiled at Julie, a smile with more brilliance than the sunrise, Julie thought. “I was afraid you weren’t coming in, mija.”
Julie raced toward the piano, throwing her arms around her mother, only to let out a tiny sob of disappointment when her arms passed through the spirit’s form without resistance. “Hija, don’t be upset,” Rose murmured, and Julie saw more than felt her mother smooth a hand over her hair. “I’m afraid as a dear friend of mine once said ‘a ghost hug isn’t a feel-good moment.’ But I’m here and only for a short time, so let’s not worry over what we don’t have.”
“Mom,” Julie choked out. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Oh, honey, I know. I’m worried about you Julie,” and the spirit’s eyes glistened for a moment as if with unshed tears. “No music, mija? No playing, no singing, not even listening? And no family Christmas?”
Julie felt awful–and a little resentful. How could her mother know what it had been like, being without her? She looked down at her monster slippers and scuffed one against the floor.
“Mom I–I–it’s not the same. How can it be a family Christmas without you?”
“By keeping me alive in all our traditions and all the things we loved together, Julie. Not by closing yourself off from your dad, from Carlos, from Flynn–from life,” Rose looked sad. “I would have loved to be with all of you longer Julie, but don’t lose the joy of all you have left to you. You are so loved–and you also love so hard.
"It is required of everyone that the spirit within them walk abroad among their fellow human beings, Julie. You have always done that with music…but you’ve lost your way. You will be haunted by three spirits.”
“If it’s all the same to you, Mom, I think I’d rather not.” Julie was barely over her shock at seeing one ghost, and was in no frame of mind to deal with three.
Rose’s face grew fainter. “Expect the first tomorrow when the bell tolls one. The second on the next night at the same hour. The third on the next night at the last stroke of midnight. I love you, mija.” And she vanished in a swirl of sparkling light and a gentle breeze, trailing piano music in her wake.
---
When Julie had recovered from her disappointment, she noticed a stack of sheet music on the piano. She carefully lifted the top one, gasping in wonder as it gave off a few light sparkles of its own…almost a if it had been sprinkled in a ghostly fairy dust. She recognized her mother’s signature–the graceful musical notes elevating the humble paper into a work of art. Entranced by this evidence of her mother’s ghostly presence, it was a few minutes before she processed the words and music.
This was the melody her mother had been playing! Julie stared wordlessly at the piano keys. They seemed to reproach her, the months of the instrument going untouched asking her who did she think she was, having the right to play them after abandoning them for so long.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Julie had to know. She lowered her hands to the keys and began to play, first tentatively and just a bit awkwardly, but as the notes blossomed into vibrancy, with more confidence. By the time she reached the bridge, her fingers were striking the keys with complete conviction, and she felt that maybe, just maybe, she could even sing.
So she took a deep breath, and started again. “Here’s the one thing, I want you to know, you got some place to go…”
Life’s a test yes, but you go toe-to-toe,
You don’t give up, no, you gro-o-ow…
And you use your pain, cause it makes you you,
Though I wish I could hold you through it
I know it’s not the same–you got living to do,
And I just want you to do it…
It was too much. Julie stopped, delicately and carefully replaced the precious sheet music, folded her arms, and lowered her face to rest on them. Shoulders shaking, she silently wept out her loss, wishing with all her heart that her mother was there to fold her up in a warm hug.
---
Julie cried herself out and went back to bed. She slept most of the day, not waking up for the increasingly urgent texts from Flynn, not for Carlos’s water pistol fight, not even for her dad’s special grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. At dinner time, she emerged from her bedroom, hair uncombed and thick glasses on, her slim figure completely obscured by her giant sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants. She silently slipped down the stairs to the dinner table, her shoulders slumped and her posture defeated.
“Well, you slept a long time, Julie!” Her dad said brightly and heartily. Ray Molina was determined to give his kids his best face through the holidays…confining his own grief to his room after they were asleep. “After all that rest, if you want to stay up late and watch Christmas films, your old dad might be up for it!”
Julie didn’t answer. “What do you say, mija?” he urged. “A little ‘The Holiday’? Maybe some ‘Grinch’ for Carlos? Or we could pull out ‘Love, Actually.’ That is always a hit.”
She looked up from her plate and met her dad’s eyes. “Dad,” she said, quietly and seriously. “I saw Mom last night.”
Ray tried to understand what she was saying. “You mean in a dream sweetheart?”
She shook her head. “No, I mean in the garage.”
“Cool, like a ghost?” Carlos exclaimed. “I want to see Mom too!”
“She said she wouldn’t be back, but she’s worried about me. Dad, if she could appear once, why did she leave us alone all these months?” Julie paused. “Dad?” And when he still said nothing, she continued, “you do believe me, right?”
“I believe that you saw something, honey, but don’t you think it was probably more of a wish…or even a dream? Maybe you dreamed that you went down to the garage. Why would you have been in there last night anyway?”
“I did NOT dream it,” Julie argued hotly. “I heard piano playing coming from the garage and when I went to look it was Mom. It WAS. And she said that more ghosts would be coming, Dad! And when she disappeared she left a song behind!” Julie ran upstairs and came back holding the beautifully notated sheets. She passed them silently to her father, who softened at the sight of his beloved wife’s handwriting. “It’s called ‘Wake Up’, Dad.”
“Mija, I’m sure if your mother left this, she wanted you to have it, I mean, it’s not like Carlos or I could get any use out of it. But maybe you found this in the garage and dreamed the rest?”
“Dad, ghosts are REAL,” Carlos said. “I saw this video on youtube and–”
“Not now, Carlos,” Ray said. “This is serious. Mija, I’m sure your mother would appear all the time if she could, but death–it’s not like that. Maybe it’s time for another few sessions with Dr. Turner–just so you can talk some things out.”
“You don’t believe me,” Julie deflated into a little puddle of unhappiness.
“It’s NOT that I don’t believe you, honey, it’s just–why now after all these months? Why would she appear to you now?”
“She said she wanted us to have a real family Christmas together,” Julie said with a sniffle. Her dad smiled, his very gentlest smile.
“Well, then, mija, don’t you think that maybe you want that too? I would love that. It won’t be the same without her, no, but we can do all the things she loved, and I know that she’ll be watching over us.”
Julie poked at her chicken. It was fine, one of her dad’s better efforts in the kitchen, actually. She still had no appetite. But under the beam of his hopeful smile, she speared a forkful and began chewing. And chewing. And chewing.
The chicken was tender enough. But she’d never realized how long it takes to chew something when you don’t really want to eat it.
Finally she swallowed and washed it down with a gulp of orange juice. “Dad,” she started again. “What if it really was Mom and I really am going to be haunted? I mean, I don’t think Frosty the Snowman and Love, Actually are going to cure me.”
Her dad’s smile grew even wider and more gentle. “If your mother’s ghost really came to visit, than I know she would never, ever, living or dead, let anyone near you or your brother that would hurt either of you. If you DO see ghosts, mija, maybe try talking to them? Figuring out what they’re trying to tell you? Maybe journal some more for–”
Julie held up her hand. “Don’t say it, Dad–”
“Tell you what, niña. You finish your dinner, watch a movie with me and Carlos tonight, and maybe we pop some popcorn and have holiday M&Ms? And we don’t talk any more about Dr. Turner until after the holidays. Deal?” And he held up his forefinger in their promise pact sign.
Julie smiled reluctantly. Her dad loved her so much. She linked her finger to his. “Okay, but I want the Jim Carrey version of the Grinch, Dad.”
“Done!”
---
After a night of family and movies, Julie felt both better and worse. Worse, because enjoying anything family oriented without her mother felt weird and wrong. Also worse, because she was coming around to her dad’s idea that it had all been a dream. As much as she didn’t want to be haunted by any more ghosts, she wasn’t ready to let go of what might be her final conversation with her mother, either.
But on the better side, she had done something Christmas-sy and the world hadn’t ended. “Look at me, Mom, you can call off your ghost friends now,” she muttered after brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas. And then with a little sigh, wondering if her mother could actually hear her, she climbed into bed.
She was asleep within minutes.
---
“Juuuuuuulie. Juuuuuulie Molina!” Julie woke with a start, an unfamiliar voice ringing through her ears. She looked around, but didn’t see anyone. She checked the music box, hoping her mother might still be around, but it was silent in the dark room. Picking up her pillow and giving it a good fluff, she curled her arms around it and snuggled deeper under her comforter, willing herself back to sleep.
“Juuuuulie, what’s in the box?” came that voice, again. Julie sat up.
“What’s in the box? What box?” she turned toward her nightstand again, but saw nothing. And that wasn’t the direction the voice was coming from anyway. Rubbing her eyes with one hand, she grabbed her glasses with the other, and shoved them onto her face.
Suddenly a filmy white light spilled down from the ceiling of her room. Blinking in disbelief, Julie stared as it illuminated– a teenage boy?
“Okay, I’m definitely asleep. And dreaming.”
“Dude, really? ‘What’s in the box?' That’s what you’re going with as an opening? Julie’s going to think you’re creepy.”
The teenage boy turned his back to Julie and she realized there were two more behind him–one the same height and one taller, all ridiculously handsome–under the halo of white. “Oh, like you could do better, Alex? Give me a break.”
“I couldn’t do worse than ‘what’s in the box’, Luke, for crying out loud. What is the matter with you?”
“Um, hello?” Julie wasn’t sure exactly what you said to three weirdly see-through guys that appeared in your bedroom, but she couldn’t decide whether she was more freaked out that they were in her room at all, or irritated that they seemed to have completely forgotten her presence. Just to be safe, she darted around them and grabbed the carved wooden cross off of her wall. Brandishing it in front of her, she finally felt brave enough to say, “Who ARE you guys and what are you doing in my room?”
The first one (the “what’s in the box?” guy, Julie remembered) stepped forward. “Hi, we’re Sunset Curve! And we’re here to change your life! I’m Luke,” and he extended a hand toward her. Not about to touch him, Julie waved her cross menacingly in his direction instead.
“Reggie, I’m Reggie!” one of the other ones remarked, brushing his chestnut brown hair out of his eyes and smiling at Julie.
“Alex, how’s it going?” the tall blond said, followed by a quiet mutter. “Change her life? Dramatic much, Luke?”
“Alex, this is the performance of a LIFETIME. Be cool and don’t blow this for us.” Luke seethed, jutting his jaw out at his friend. Alex held up his hands in defeat, so Luke turned back to Julie. “Didn’t Rose tell you we were coming?”
“My mom said ONE ghost would haunt me tonight. ONE. I see three of you! And what’s a Sunset Swerve anyway?”
“Sunset CURVE!” Three outraged male voices united in one aggrieved shout.
“Okay, whatever,” Julie said. “The point is, why are there THREE of you?”
The ghost that called himself Reggie held up his finger as if he were about to talk. Alex shook his head. “Reginald, just don’t.”
“I don’t tell you how to ghost!” Reggie argued. Alex looked like he had something to say about THAT too, but before he could Reggie peeked over Luke’s shoulder at Julie. He waved at her and grinned--pure good-natured delight. “We’re here for moral support!”
“What?” Julie was so surprised she nearly dropped the cross. She did drop the arm that was holding it, before putting her other hand on her hips. She couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “You’re ghosts, why do YOU need moral support? Aren’t you dead? What do you have to be afraid of?”
“Aren’t you alive? What do YOU have to be so mad about?” Luke challenged, crossing his bare arms over his chest, pouting a little.
Julie almost threw her cross at him, then thought better of it. “My mom died you insensitive–” she started to yell– and then she looked at them. Really looked. They couldn’t be more than a couple of years older than she was. And they were dead. She felt her anger begin to cool.
Reggie, on the other hand, visibly brightened. He seemed to be a cheerful sort of person. “Rose is your mom? She’s really cool. Hey, Luke, remember when you and Bobby and me–” he was cut off by two elbows in his gut–one from each of his friends.
“Be. Cool. Man.” Luke said through clenched teeth. “Listen, Julie, Rose was awesome. I’m sorry you lost her. But she said you’re a musician. Like us. And you haven’t been playing. You can’t give up Music.” Julie could almost hear the capital letter at the beginning of the word when Luke said “music”. He stepped closer to her, sincerity oozing from every pore he probably didn’t have (since as a ghost he wouldn’t have skin, right? Julie thought that was probably right.)
“You HAVE to play again. Real musicians can’t give it up. Not without giving up part of our soul.”
Now it was Julie’s turn to cross her arms. “You don’t understand anything. And maybe my mom did send you to me, but I’m sending you back. She doesn’t understand what it’s been like, being–” she swallowed, trying to dispel the sudden lump in her throat– “without her. It’s the worst feeling in the world.”
Luke’s face softened, and his eyes (which were hazel, Julie realized, startled) suddenly looked terribly old, wise, and sad. “There’s more than one way to lose someone, Julie. But it’s most important, never to lose,” and he pointed at her chest, “yourself.”
He held out his arms, and an electric guitar appeared. “Just place your hand on my guitar, and I can show you images of the past.”
“Long past?” Julie asked, wrinkling her nose.
“Your past.”
Julie wanted to argue that she hadn’t agreed to anything yet, but then she thought that might mean she’d get to see her mother again. So she stepped into her slippers, pulled a sweatshirt over her pajamas, and cautiously placed a hand against the blue guitar. It felt super cool and smooth to the touch–as cold as ice, but without any of ice’s roughness. Kind of like the glass of a mirror, actually.
She had barely processed that when Luke bit his lower lip, jerked the guitar, and played an incredible riff. Julie felt her jaw drop at the music this ghostly teenager was producing–much better than Nick, the guitarist in her music class.He trailed into a melody and she recognized it: a rock spin on “Carol of the Bells.” Against her will, she felt herself beginning to nod along in time…when suddenly he stopped.
“We’re here.”