I awake to a sound downstairs. I sit up in bed, wondering if I just shouted out "Maggie!" in a threatening tone it would mean that by eliminating one of two probable sources of the noise they'd both stop. The faint sound comes again-the sound of something being knocked over-and I sigh, throwing the covers off. I don't think to wake Angus as I am sure it's the cats misbehaving downstairs, and anyway even if it were a one-armed bandit, Angus would just shrug and tell me to go to sleep, the man's going to steal what he wants to steal.

I sling on the pajamas which were discarded by the bed, and putting my glasses to my face I tread softly downstairs, feline homicide on my mind.

I walk into the living room, and there in the middle of the living room is a big shaggy dog. A big shaggy dog in my living room. A big shaggy dog who somehow got past the locked front door and is in my living room. A big shaggy dog is currently standing on his back two legs, righting the side table that he knocked over.

"Geez, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to knock that over. It's the tail. I saw the cats and...well. A dog's gotta' do what a dog's gotta' do," he says apologetically.

I bend over and look under the couch and see my two cats, roughly twice their size in exploded standing-up fur and their eyes glowing with hatred.

The dog turns around and drops to all 4 legs. "Like I said, a dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do. But they'll be ok. I'm sorry about the noise, I usually try to be quieter. It just didn't say on the job spec that there are cats in here. They know cats are my weakness. Geez. A little warning, people!" He shouts, raising a paw to the sky.

I stand there, staring.

"What are you thinkin', kid?" asks the dog.

I look at the dog and blink. "I'm thinking I need to lay off the melatonin."

"What?"

"And the realtor is going to shit when they hear there's a dog in the house."

"Hey, I'm not just a dog. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"If I tell my therapist about this he will totally lock me up this time."

"So don't tell him, then. Who says therapy is all about 100% honesty all the time?"

I cock my head sideways. "Am I being Punk'd?"

The dog shakes its fur, which goes in all different directions. "Do you think Ashton Kutchner has the brain power to make a dog talk?"

"Fair point," I concede. "So...why a dog?"

"What, you were expecting an animated cricket in a waistcoat or something? Fucking Disney." says Christmas Past, and lifts his leg to lick his ass. I feel my lip curl in disgust. Once Christmas Past has completed the tongue toilet paper routine, he turns to me. "You're Helen, I know. You can call me Fido, but if you laugh I will kick your ass from here to Christmas Future. Just so we're clear."

I hold my hands up. "No skin off my back as to what you're called."

"See, Helen," Fido says, sitting down. "I have come to try to save you. You're heading down a dark path, kid. A dark path. And the folks upstairs, they just thought maybe you needed some kind of kick in the pants, because you're struggling right now. And I want to help you stop struggling, because that's no way to live."

"Umm...ok." I say slowly. "So...what? We look through photo albums? 'Cause I don't have any, and anyway that picture of me with the poodle perm isn't going to cause me to have any kind of struggle relief, that bad boy needs to be burned. And I don't really remember my past anyway, so this should be a short journey."

Fido stands on his feet again and walks to me. He reaches for my hand and, his rough sandpaper pads on my hand, passes me a blue leash. He sits back down, tilting his head.

"OK, hook me up," he says.

"What?" I ask.

"Put the leash on."

"You want me to walk you?"

"No, you silly bint. The leash is for you to hold on to, so you don't get lost," he growls. "Those parallel universes are a real bitch."

I clip the leash on and, deciding to forgo my own personal vow that Thou Shalt Not Leave the House Without Lip Gloss On, open the front door and, holding on to the wrist strap, we walk outside. Only once we pass the front door, instead of stepping neatly onto the soggy striped doormat that lingers just outside the front door, we slide cleanly into the hallway of an old house. The house has pale yellow walls, numerous boots by the front door and the hallway smells like frying bacon and Kool-Aid. Outside the window I see snow falling gracefully, and beyond that a dirt road, a gas tank, and an enormous metal tub.

"I know where I am," I say faintly, feeling my heart crash into itself.

Fido sits and, raising a leg, scratches his ear.

"I know this place," I tell Fido. I turn to him, and see he has his leg up, ready to nail the corner of the doorway. "Don't you dare!" I shout at him.

"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "Got a whiff of some other mutt in this house and had to let him know who's boss."

I feel faint. I touch a hand to the wall and turn a corner. "I can't believe it. I'm in Iowa, in my grandma and grandpa's farmhouse." I feel like I can't breathe. "But I don't understand. They sold this place so long ago. They don't live here, and my grandpa isn't even-"

I stop as I turn the corner and see there, on his usual armchair, sits my grandpa. My beloved grandpa. Tears spring to my eyes as I watch him watching the TV. Fido comes up and puts his head under my hand.

"That's my grandpa," I whisper to Fido. "He died 6 years ago, but I think I have missed him everyday." I walk over to him and kneel by his chair.

"He can't see you, kid. You're not really here," Fido says sadly.

I watch my grandpa for a moment, taking in the scent of him, a mixture of motor oil, cigar smoke and sweat, a manly smell, a real smell. Then, in the corner of my vision, I see something so startling it makes me fall from my kneeling position. A little girl with long brown hair and pink overalls runs into the living room. She has a round face and two bucked front teeth. She looks thin but healthy. I feel the air sucked out of my solar plexus as I watch her.

She's me.

The little girl me.

She runs up to my grandpa and, with one bounce, lands on his lap. She squeezes her arms around his neck, which he returns with a one-arm hug that is so strong it makes her squeak. She bounces off of him with the same Tigger-like energy that only the young have, and walks into the dining room area.

"I think you should follow her," Fido says quietly.

I walk around the corner and there, at the dining room table, is my father and my little sister. My grandma is hovering around in the kitchen and my mother is reading a book on the floor in the living room. Everyone looks so different, so unbelievably young. Spread across the table is the detritus of home crafts-thick, red Christmas stockings, bottles of Elmer's Glue and sparkly vials of glitter. My father is meticulously painting his stocking with thin lines of glue, while he cackles gleefully.

I remember this day. It comes to me suddenly, swiftly.

I watch as my child fingers manipulate glitter and glue. I watch as the snowflakes I intended to make simply become enormous black holes of glitter, I watch as I scrawl my name along the top of the stocking but don't leave enough room, and the last three letters of my name are splayed nearly on top of each other on the side. I have glitter in my hair, glue on my cheek, and am pulling off lumps of the stuff from the palms of my hand, the rings of my fingers like so many little veins in the glue.

My father holds up the stocking he made for my sister, and it is beautiful. Her name is spelled perfectly and evenly across the top, and the middle is covered with perfectly formed silver snowflakes and a snowman with a red glitter hat. He looks very proud. I look down at my stocking, which looks like it has been involved in a hit and run accident with a pixie.

"Your stocking sucks, Dog Breath!" crows my dad, using my occasional nickname. "It's awful! And stupid! Mine is so much better!" He points to mine, laughing. I see my little girl face burn with shame and I hate my stocking so much I want to cut it to bits with scissors.

I feel Fido come up next to me, and as he sits down his haunches rub up against my ankles. I feel embarassed for the little girl me. I feel embarrassed for the big girl me. I feel stupid standing there in my purple pajamas, and I feel fat and ugly and horrible. I watch the little girl me choke back hot tears, and all I want to do is hug her tightly and exclaim over her incredible stocking. I want to tell her it's the most beautiful stocking I have ever seen, ever, and that if she will let me have it I will treasure it and hang it up every year.

"It's hard when you're made to feel like that as a child." Fido says quietly.

"I never felt I was enough," I reply softly. "You probably think I am being stupid. I know it seems like this is nothing, this is just a ridiculous stocking. But it wasn't just the stocking, it was often like that. I was always too slow, too stupid, too fat, too ugly, too bookworm-ish. I was never...enough. I'm still not enough." I turn to Fido. "Why'd you bring me here, anyway? To remind me of that? To remind me of how useless I am? To remind me of the loss of my grandpa? Isn't that what therapy's for?"

Fido looks up at me, the shaggy brown hair moving away from his eyes. "I only take you to where you're supposed to go, Helen. I don't choose the places." He stands. "Come, it's time to go."

We stop by the front door and I hook the leash to him. "I still love Christmas," I tell him, as much for myself as for him. "I really do. I think it's a beautiful time."

He nods. "Christmas is lovely. It's my favorite, I just love getting me some chew toys in my stocking. Those damn squeakers inside those toys-I tell ya', they just drive me nuts!" He shakes his head, and then looks at me. "What would you have said to the little you?"

I look at him and try to shrug it off. "To try to resist eating any cheese as in the future it'll be her Achilles' Heel. To make sure not to date that Mike guy, he was a real loser. Oh-and invest in Microsoft as soon as possible. That kind of thing."

He shakes his head. "They always think they're so tough," he says to himself. He puts the leash in my hand and shakes his whole fur coat again. "OK, kid, so I guess you know the drill. Two more ghosts are coming, I can't tell you a whole lot more since I only take the first shift, but hopefully at the end of it you get all happy about Christmas again."

"And...what? Make my assistant partner and save his kid from dying from some disease that started off with a limp?" I ask sarcastically.

Fido regards me. "Bitter, aren't we? No wonder you were on the list for visits. I'll see you around, kid. Try to take care of yourself, ok?" And together we walk out the front door, and straight back into my little living room in England, only once I walk through the front door I am alone, with the smell of wet dog in the living room and two furious cats tucked under the couch.

-H.

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