Sylvia couldn’t find the words to express her shock, even when she sat down with a notebook to try and write them down like she normally did in times of high stress. She just couldn’t think of anything.

Maybe the writer’s block was affecting her mind more than she realized.

Shoving the journal back under her pillow - its usual hiding place - Sylvia got off her bed to wander her apartment to find the only working clock in the place. Only one clock worked at a time, even though she could never figure out why. They weren’t on any sort of schedule for which clock would work at what time; wandering was the only way to figure it out, especially when her cell phone was dead. They’d start back up at whatever time they left off at, but she could never keep track of which clock left off at what time.

It was a few hours after Marlene had appeared. Sylvia was almost convinced that it was just a hallucination from a lack of sleep the night before, but it felt so real that she couldn’t bring herself to write it off that easily.

If midnight came and went with no visitors, that’s when she could consider it a dream. No sooner than that.

She passed the clock on the wall in her little living room and it was frozen at twelve o’clock; not the working one. Grumbling at her wonky apartment, Sylvia meandered into the dining room/kitchen area, where her phone was plugged in and charging. She flipped it over and hit the power button. While it turned on, she grabbed a coke from the fridge and leaned against the counter, watching as her phone lit up and went to the home screen. Cracking open the can, she took the three steps to her phone and glanced at the time.

Her eyes widened when she saw what time it was.

“It can’t be eleven-thirty!” she said aloud to the empty apartment.

Sure enough, when she went back to the living room and pulled back the curtains, it was pitch black outside - even the lights in the apartment complex were dark. The cars were all in their parking places (she could only see by the light of the moon and lack of trees) and no one was walking around. It was a Tuesday night, which would explain why everyone was already home and asleep.

But it did not explain how six hours had passed without her knowledge.

Sylvia pushed the curtains back together and stumbled back into the center of her living room.
She fell onto the middle cushion of her couch and covered her face with her hands.

“What’s going on?” she muttered. She sat there for a few minutes, trying to find a reasonable explanation for what had happened that afternoon and how it had suddenly become the middle of the night - she couldn’t.

Sylvia pushed herself off the couch and walked back to the kitchen as slowly as she could. She grabbed her Coke off the counter, where she hadn’t even remembered she’d placed it, and leaned over the counter to grab the house phone. Maybe she could call her mother and see if anything strange had happened to her.

Before she could punch in her mother’s number, she heard the ticking of the living room clock start.

The clock that had been stopped at twelve o’clock exactly.

Taking a deep breath, she turned around to face the living room again. She didn’t notice anything out of order, and there was certainly no ghost waiting for her.

“It was just a dream,” Sylvia sighed, picking up her drink and taking a sip.

“What was just a dream, dear?”

Sylvia was so shocked that she spit her drink all over the counter and started coughing, trying to find the source of the voice in her apartment.

“That was a very impolite greeting, if I may say so,” commented the woman who walked out from the hallway a few seconds later.

The young author’s eyes widened. “You’re-you’re Jane-”

“Yes, I am Jane Austen.”

Sylvia stumbled away from the counter and ended up backing into her fridge. “But- but you’re dead!” she shrieked, but Jane Austen simply walked closer at a slow pace; Sylvia didn’t hear any footsteps.

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” Ms. Austen admitted. “But nevertheless, I am here right now. And we must get going so that I may show you what needs to be shown before your time is up with me.”

“You’re the Ghost of Writers Past?” Sylvia managed to gasp out, her eyes flicking around her apartment, trying to find any hidden cameras or projectors that might be producing the image of her long-time favorite author.

“I thought that would be fairly obvious,” Jane stated, staring down the living writer. “Now, come on, Miss Williams. We have a few places to be.” She stretched out a hand to Sylvia, waiting for her to take it.

“Where are we going?” Sylvia asked. “And how are we getting there? Last time I checked, nineteenth century authors didn’t own cars.”

Jane Austen laughed - very loudly and very unladylike, something Sylvia wouldn’t expect from the author of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. “Of course we won’t be taking those infernal contraptions. Where we’re going requires a much different ode of transportation. We will be traveling by carriage.”

Sylvia still thought that this was the strangest thing to ever happen to her: her dead sister spoke to her while she was in her bedroom and Jane Austen wanted to go for a carriage ride with her.

“I see dead people,” she whispered to herself, taking Jane’s hand. She didn’t expect to actually touch hands, but when her fingers came in contact with Ms. Austen’s hand, she was shocked to find it warm and relatively un-dead.

“Come with me,” the woman said, gently tugging Sylvia’s arm once. “I would like to go visit your younger self.”

“Wait, my younger self?” Sylvia protested, dragging her feet along the carpet to slow them down.

“Pick up your feet, Miss Williams. Static electricity is not our friend.”

“Says Jane Austen,” Sylvia grumbled, but decided to walk normally as to not anger the ghost.

“Yes, I am quite certain that we have established that I am Jane Austen. You may call me Miss Austen if you'd like. I believe we have also concluded that I am dead, so we can skip past that repeat. Now, if you would follow me, we have a carriage waiting and I must work quickly because the next ghost will be here soon. Although, and goodness me, I do not like the thought of leaving a young woman alone with an older man, ghost or no ghost.”

The young -still living – writer could only stare. She did not think that Jane Austen would ever be the type of woman who rambled, but here she was, in all of her slightly glowing grey glory, going on and on about the propriety of men and women and ghosts of either gender.

It wasn't until Miss Austen stepped onto the curb that Sylvia realized she hadn't opened the front door. Neither had her ghostly counter-part – she had simply walked through it and, as Sylvia had been holding onto her, she received the same treatment as a ghost. She had walked straight through her own front door.

“Oh Jones!” Miss Austen called in her most regal sounding voice. As soon as the last syllable left her mouth, both women heard a loud rumbling in the distance. Before Sylvia could begin to figure out what it was, she watched in shock as an old carriage appeared. And by old, she did not merely mean it was from the 19th century. It looked as if it had barely survived the 19th century; the wheels were rugged, the seat cushion on the coach's spot was worn, there were cobwebs hanging from the bottom and, when it pulled to a stop in front of the women, the inside. But the most peculiar thing about this carriage was that there was no one driving it.

“This is Jones,” Jane Austen introduced, gesturing toward the old carriage. “Well, it is Jones' carriage. Jones died a few years after I did. He was a dear friend to me, but alas, we must all go at some point.”

“Jones was your... carriage driver?” Sylvia asked hesitantly.

Miss Austen barked a very unladylike laugh. “No, dear, Jones was my horse! Now, come on. We have places to go and people to see.”

Sylvia had no idea what to do except to follow the older author. This all had to be a dream. Dead horses, carriages, Jane Austen, ghosts...

What's next, Charles Dickens criticizing my novel? Sylvia thought bitterly. I just want to wake up!

So, she did what any rational person would do if they were trapped in a dream with their favorite author being ushered onto a nineteenth century carriage – she went with it.

Jane Austen didn't climb into the carriage portion of the carriage, no she got up on the seat and grabbed the reins, which then appeared to be floating in midair in front of the carriage where the horse – Jones – should have been. Miss Austen patted the seat beside her. “Come on up, dear.”

As soon as Sylvia was seated beside her ghostly author friend, Miss Austen snapped the reins and the carriage shot off into the night.

“Where are we going?” Sylvia yelled over the wind in their ears.

“You'll see in a moment!” Miss Austen called back.

Sylvia didn't dare look around, fearing that she would get motion sickness if she saw how fast they were traveling; she could tell they were going much faster than antique carriages should have allowed.

Before she could ask again where they were going, the carriage stopped suddenly and would have sent Sylvia flying from her seat if Miss Austen hadn't grabbed the back of her T-shirt.

“Don't fall off now,” Miss Austen warned as Sylvia righted herself. “You don't want to fall off while we're in motion, or you'll get lost.”

Sylvia was skeptical. “Lost where?”

Jane Austen shrugged. “Who knows? I do not have any idea where you'd land, or even if you'd land, especially if you'd land in the right time or place. That's why you don't want to fall off.” She climbed off on steady legs, unlike Sylvia's, and brushed off the back of her gown which had turned into a long black riding dress while they rode. Sylvia climbed off after her and looked around.

“Wait,” Sylvia said, looking around closely. It was dark, so she could only see by the light of the moon and the single streetlight at the corner, but she could see just enough. “This is my old neighborhood. This is where we lived until Marlene...” Four years and she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Miss Austen nodded solemnly and pointed towards the red brick house they'd parked in front of. “Go look in the window.”

Sylvia did as she said, walking through the damp grass up to the window, where the blinds were open just enough to see through.

When she got to the window, she saw herself, a younger version of herself, sitting at a desktop computer beside another girl.

Sylvia's jaw dropped and Jane Austen went to stand beside her, looking in the window. “That's me and Marlene,” Sylvia said, her voice low and barely there.

“Yes, it is.”

“Can they see us?”

“No, we are merely here as ghosts. No one can see, hear, or touch us.”

Sylvia reached her hand up to touch the glass, but her fingers fell through it – she saw them appear on the other side. “Can we go in?” she asked.

Miss Austen nodded. “Just step through the wall,” she instructed. “You'll go right through.”

Keeping up with her “Just go with it” attitude, Sylvia followed her ghostly fingers through the window, stepping right through the glass, part of the wall, and the blinds. She was instantly in the sun-yellow computer room with her younger self and her older sister.

“Mar, you should say that she has long hair!” Young Sylvia cheered, pointing at a certain spot on the computer screen. “Like Rapunzel!” Sylvia crept closer to look at what it was and saw that they were writing something.

“Sure, Syl,” the twelve year old Marlene said, hitting the backspace button a few times and then changing their character's hair to what Young Sylvia had said. The younger girl cheered loudly, but Marlene just laughed and shushed her. “Don't wake up Gus.”

Young Sylvia's face turned sheepish and she giggled. “Whoops.”

“What color should her eyes be?” Young Marlene asked, turning back to the computer screen and keyboard. “I think blue or green. Or maybe grey.”

“But grey's so boring!” This outburst came from both Sylvias and Jane just laughed at the look on the older version of Sylvia's face.

“Not really,” Young Marlene said. “It has a bunch of different shades just like any other color. It has dark grey and light grey and probably even more purples or greens or blues. Grey is really pretty!”

Young Sylvia pouted. “Why can't she just have normal blue eyes?”

Young Marlene sighed, but laughed. “Fine, she'll have long blonde hair and blue eyes with freckles on her cheeks and nose.”

“Yay!” Young Sylvia yelled. This time, her voice did wake up their younger brother and everyone heard the loud crying from a room over.

“That would be our cue to leave,” Jane said, pulling lightly on Sylvia's arm.

Sylvia pulled against Miss Austen's grip, but was pulled back through the wall a few moments later.

“What was the point of that?” Sylvia asked angrily, ripping her arm from the older woman's grip and stomping back toward the carriage. “Make me see how much I used to enjoy writing to boost my enthusiasm?”

“That and let your see your sister again, back before she was depressed,” Jane argued. “But I see it's going to take more than a trip to your childhood home, so let's get going. We only have a few more minutes before you need to be home for the next ghost.”

Grumbling to herself, Sylvia climbed back up onto the horseless carriage and grabbed onto the edge of the seat. Jane climbed up beside her, grabbed the reins, and snapped them loudly. Just like before, the carriage shot off, but not before Jane Austen said, “Don't mumble, it's not very ladylike.”

“Look who's talking,” Sylvia said, making sure she was loud enough for the other woman to hear her.

They took off, Sylvia holding on for dear life. It took less time to get to their next destination than the first, and it was a much smoother stop.

“I think I'm getting the hang of this thing,” Jane Austen said happily, setting the reins on the seat and climbing down.

“Wait, you've never driven this before?” Sylvia asked, her voice almost screechy from disbelief.
Jane shook her head. “No. I was never taught to, either. But I thought it would be more fun than flying.”

Slightly panicked now that she knew that Jane Austen had been driving them around in a carriage that she didn't know how to drive, Sylvia hopped off the seat once more and immediately recognized the place.

“This is the IHOP a few blocks from my apartment,” she said, looking at all the cars in the parking lot. “This is where I came for that NaNoWriMo opening party back in 2012.”

Jane smiled at her. “Why do you think we came here?”

Sylvia walked to the window and peered into the restaurant and saw a large group of people crowded around tables with laptops open in front of them. There was a clock set up in the middle of the room and it was inching toward midnight. She watched as people milled around, getting food and coffee and talking to new friends. Then, she saw herself, two years younger, sitting at a table by herself with her laptop open and an open notebook beside her.

“This was the year you stopped loving writing,” Miss Austen said, stepping up beside her companion.

“I thought you said that it was when I lost my sister. Or, you implied it, at least.”

“I never said that,” she clarified. “You stopped loving writing when you started thinking that you had to love it to enjoy it.”

They were both silent for a while, watching the men and women in the building start settling down at their laptops. Sylvia was still alone and quiet, sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee and a plate of buttermilk pancakes.

“You only came to this because it was you and your sister's wish to go to one of these before you died,” Jane said quietly. “You didn't want to come, but you wanted to feel closer to her sister. So you came and sat in a corner for three hours eating dishcakes and drinking foul black coffee.”

“I didn't go last year,” Sylvia said regretfully, hanging her head. She tried to put her hand against the window, but it went right through. She looked back at herself, then again at everyone else in IHOP.

She stepped away, unable to look anymore. “I'd like to go home now,” she whispered.

Jane Austen didn't object. She just walked back to the carriage, letting Sylvia follow at her own pace. And she did, a few seconds later. They shot off with Jones the ghost horse drawing the carriage and by the time they arrived at Sylvia's apartment, she was already almost asleep. Jane Managed to drop her off in her room before she disappeared into the night with the carriage, leaving Sylvia to her dreams.

Sylvia didn't know how long she'd been asleep when she heard someone rustling around at her desk.

“Jane Austen, please go away. It's late and I have to get up early tomorrow to finish my novel,” she grumbled, flipping over in bed to sit up and look at the perpetrator who was making all the noise.

It wasn't Jane Austen who was sitting in her desk chair. It was more like an old man was spinning around in her chair and trying to grab onto the desk to stop.

“How do you stop this thing?” he yelled frantically, spinning too fast to catch the desk.

Eyes wide, Sylvia rolled out of bed and grabbed the back of the chair, bringing the man to a stop facing her. He swayed a little, but as soon as he could sit up straight, he smiled at Sylvia. “Hello, Miss Williams. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Present.”

Sylvia raised an eyebrow. “Christmas?”

“Oh, whoops,” said the man, pushing the chair back so he could stand up; he was only a few inches taller than Sylvia. “I meant writers. I am Charles Dickens, your Ghost of Writers Present. And I'm here to take you to see why you need to keep writing and why you should enjoy it along the way.”

This ghost was much easier to believe than Jane Austen, but Sylvia was still shocked at the newest ghost in her home, much less the ghost her novel was based on.

“Also, where is your typewriter?” he asked, spinning the chair back to face the desk and leaning over her closed laptop. “I'd very much like to read what you've written at some point tonight.”

She decided to refer back to her original plan: this is a dream, just go with it.

“I don't have a typewriter,” she explained. “I have a laptop, which is basically a modernized version of the typewriter. It has a keyboard, but instead of loading paper, it has a screen and you see what you type appear on the screen.”

Charles Dickens' eyes widened in marvel. “Really?” he asked. “How fascinating! You must show me at some point. But for now, we should probably go. We have a few people to see and places to be. Or places to see and people to be. Whichever you prefer, but we must be off, so if you could follow me to the the door and off we'll be.”

Without another word, he flew off the chair, and not in a metaphorical sense. He leaped into the air and instead of walking to the door, his feet were off the ground and he floated, much like a real ghost, to the bedroom door and down the hallway toward the front of the apartment.

Sylvia followed – on two feet though – and saw that the ghostly author was waiting at the front door.

“Take my hand, my dear,” he said when she got there. “I hope you're ready to fly, because we have to go to a far away place!”

“Neverland?” Sylvia asked, only slightly kidding. “Second star on the right and straight on till morning?”

Charles laughed heartily. “I don't know what that is, dear girl, but it is definitely a long ways away.”

Sylvia shrugged and took his hand. “It's just something from a story,” she said.

This time, rather than taking a carriage or walking straight through the front door, Charles Dickens opened the front door and Sylvia felt her feet rise off the ground.

“Hold on tightly!” Mr. Dickens called back to his companion. Sylvia tightened her grip on his hand and she watched as the ground got further and further away. That's when she decided that it was definitely a dream – she'd had flying dreams before. It was never Charles Dickens who was flying with her, but there's a first time for everything.

When they landed, it was a few minutes later, but it felt like longer up in the clouds. Sylvia didn't immediately recognize the place – it was dark and the house looked uniform to all those around it. The lights in the house in front of them were out, but after a few seconds, Sylvia's eyes adjusted to the darkness. That's when she saw the crack of light around one of the second floor windows.

“This is my aunt and uncle's house,” she whispered. “Why did we come here?”

Her ghostly counterpart pointed toward the window. “Follow the light and find out for yourself.”

“How?” she asked skeptically.

He paused and then grabbed her hand again. “Sorry, I forgot that you can't fly on your own. Come with me.”

He floated into the air with her again and pulled her toward the window, where they stepped through as easily as Sylvia and Jane Austen had at her childhood home.

Inside, Sylvia saw her seventeen year old cousin, Charlotte, who was writing in her journal and mumbling aloud. Her room was pretty dark, but she had candles lit around most of the room. She was writing by the light of one of the giant white candles in a dish beside her bed.

“Why did you bring me here?” Sylvia asked, staring at her cousin.

The ghost nodded his head at Charlotte. “Look at her wrists.”

Sylvia did and saw them covered in gauze. She saw scars peeking out from the bandages. Scars from a razor.

“She's been depressed for two years,” Charles Dickens explained. “She started cutting herself last year. She tried to kill herself a week ago.”

Tears welled in Sylvia's eyes. “Why didn't I know this?”

“Because her parents were ashamed,” he explained. “They thought that there was something wrong with her. They pulled her out of school for homeschooling and have kept her friends away by telling them that they weren't wanted around. She's been alone with her parents for a week now. They don't have the money for a therapist. And if things don't change, as she's writing in her journal now, she's going to succeed in taking her own life by any means necessary.”

A tear dripped down Sylvia's face. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you might be able to help her. Get her into writing. Don't let her go through this alone.”

Sylvia stared at her cousin for a while longer. The girl's long blonde hair was damp from a recent shower and was in a braid down her back. She was wearing a typical teenagers' pajamas: a black tank top and shorts. And, like her invisible cousin, tears were rolling down her face.

“You have to be the one to help her, Sylvia,” Charles Dickens told her quietly. “No one else can. You know what it's like to see someone who has nothing left to live for. You need to help her help herself, because, even though I don't know the future, the world would be a darker place without her.”

“You're right about that,” Sylvia whispered back. “I couldn't bear losing my cousin. I've already lost my sister. She's like an exact replica of Marlene.”

Charlotte's head shot up from staring at her journal and it seemed like she was looking right at them. But she couldn't be, because they were invisible and soundless. But Charles Dickens and Sylvia stayed silent until the girl looked down again, just in case.

“We should go,” he told Sylvia. “We have another stop to make, and then I have something to show you.”

She nodded once, but couldn't tear her eyes away from her cousin, whose shoulders began to shake with sobs. Sylvia stepped toward the bed and tried to put her hand on Charlotte's shoulder, but her hand just went through the girl.

“I can't let her kill herself,” she whispered, more to herself than her companion. “I won't let that happen. Not to Charlotte.”

Charles Dickens gently grabbed her hand – the one that wasn't still in her cousin's shoulder – and pulled her away. They took off back into the sky through the closed window, Sylvia holding back the last of the tears.

They didn't leave though. They flew out the window and back to street level, but went right back into the house through the living room window.

“What's going on down here?” Sylvia asked as they landed.

“Just listen.”

“I don't get what her problem is,” said a man's voice. He was sitting on the couch with his wife – Sylvia's aunt and uncle. “She ignores her mother for days and then doesn't check up with us or Charlotte. And she can't finish this book? It's not that difficult. My sister says that Sylvia has one chapter left and then she sends it in and it's supposed to be done tomorrow.”

“The phone works both ways, Uncle Pete,” Sylvia griped, walking further into the room to hear better.

“Dear, she doesn't write like you. She's not you,” Aunt Victoria soothed. “And she's probably just busy with school and work and her writing to call her mother every day; it doesn't mean that she's ignoring Karla.”

“More like she calls me every single day and I spend twenty minutes on the phone with her discussing the latest crazy idea she has and insists on knowing how much I've written in the past twenty-four hours since she's called.” Sylvia was muttering angrily, trying to figure out if her mother had actually told her uncle this or if she said something and he assumed this is what she had meant.

“But she's only twenty years old! She needs her mother still!”

“And you think saying any of this to her will make her listen?”

“Well, she's been a spoiled brat her entire life, she needs someone to tell her what to do.”

Sylvia gaped at her uncle's words. Spoiled? She was never spoiled, and was certainly never a brat.

“Why are you making me listen to my uncle call me a brat?” Sylvia asked the ghost angrily.

“Just wait.”

“She doesn't respect her mother, or me for that matter, and she needs to be more serious about her writing if she wants to be published. Especially if she wants to be published more than once.”

“Did her mother not tell you?” Aunt Victoria said. “Sylvia was offered a three book contract with Penguin Publishing. Dickens' Daughter is going to be published by the end of the summer and she's supposed to have a second manuscript ready for them by the end of next year.”

“Repeat the words 'supposed to' and let me know when she actually finishes that book,” Uncle Pete said bitterly.

“Oh, you're just bitter because she's becoming a published author seven years younger than you were when you were first published.”

He had nothing to say to that.

“Your aunt has faith in you,” Charles Dickens told Sylvia. “And, though it may not seem like it, your uncle does too. He just doesn't like the prospect of being outshone by his own niece.”

“So you're telling me not to give up on writing,” Sylvia clarified drily, walking away from the couch.

“I'm telling you to enjoy it, because you're not alone in this and because your writing is going to be-”

Sylvia turned sharply when Charles cut himself off. “My writing is going to be what?”

“You'll find out from the next ghost,” he said quickly. “I shouldn't have said anything. Come on, I have one last thing to show you before taking you home.”

He didn't take her hand this time, he just walked through the front door and Sylvia followed a few steps behind.

When she got outside, though, there were two other people beside Charles Dickens. Two children, in fact, a boy and a girl.

“These are the children of man,” he said. “My children, in fact, back when they were still children. My son, Ignorance, and my daughter, Want. You must avoid them, especially ignorance. If you ignore Want, you might still have the ignorance of those who desire Want. But if you ignore Ignorance, you will overpower both Want and Ignorance and you will be safe from them. But you must remember to stray from both.”

“What if I want to finish my novel?”

“Do you?”

Sylvia hesitated. “I don't know.”

“And that, my dear, is why I'm not the last ghost.”

Charles Dickens wasted no time getting Sylvia back to her apartment, where he told her to wait for the next ghost. She didn't watch as he disappeared, even though she was curious as to how ghosts vanished. Did they just disappear, there one second, gone the next? Or did they fade out? Maybe in a puff of smoke or a cloud of dust. But she didn't truthfully want to know – that would be the one secret of this dream she wanted to keep secret. Secrets meant lies and lies meant a firmer belief in the dream she was living.

A few minutes after Charles Dickens disappeared, Sylvia was waiting on her couch when she heard a loud crash from outside the apartment. She ran over to the window to check it out, but saw nothing.

“It's fine!” someone yelled from the front door – a very familiar sounding voice. “I'm fine. Just gimme a sec!”

It was just a few seconds later when the front door opened wide and a woman with long dark hair, bangs, brown eyes, and pale skin burst through. Sylvia's eyes widened as she stared at the woman.

“My name is Sophia Brooks and I am the Ghost of Writers Future. Now, if you'll just come with me, we have somewhere important to be.”

Sylvia couldn't stop staring at her. “What?” Sophia asked. “Is there something on my face?”

“Yeah,” Sylvia commented. “My face. Who are you?”

“I already told you, I'm Sophia Brooks. Or, as you call yourself now, Sylvia Williams. But you'll be me in just a few weeks, so if you'll come with me, I'd rather not let you catch up with me in this timeline.”

Sophia walked back out the front door, expecting Sylvia to follow. She did, after muttering, “Just a dream, just go with it, just a dream...”

Instead of a carriage or nothing waiting for them, there was a polished black Mercedes waiting for them at the curb and there was a man sitting in the driver's seat. “Climb in,” Sophia encouraged. “We only have one stop and that's your last one.”

Almost reluctantly thing time, Sylvia climbed into the car after Sophie, sliding into the backseat with her.

“Jones, to the cemetery!” Sophia shouted toward the front of the car. The man, who she hadn't realized was not entirely a man before that point, had a horse's skull for a head.

“Jones is half pet, half hired help,” Sophia explained as Sylvia's eyes got wider and wider. “He showed up at my door just before I was supposed to come get you. But he seems like a real sweetheart.”

That was the last thing said in the car on the drive to the cemetery.

“What you're about to see, dear older self, is what happens if you don't finish this book and get it published. It's also the same outcome if you don't rekindle your love for writing, or help your cousin.”

“I've already decided to help Cha-”

“Shush!” Sophia whisper-yelled as they climbed out of the car. Jones idled at the curb. “It doesn't matter what you've decided if you don't go through with it. And I decided this was the way to prove that you have to keep going with your writing.”

They walked a little ways into the cemetery in silence, Sylvia following behind Sophia by only a few steps. Suddenly, Sophia stopped in front of a tombstone and stepped to the side so Sylvia could see the engraving.

CHARLOTTE BROOKS

MARCH 29, 1995 – MARCH 30, 2014

DEAR SWEET CHARLOTTE, PLEASE COME BACK


Sylvia stared at it for a while. Then, she turned angrily to Sophia. “What is this?”

“This is what happens if you don't tell Charlotte about your book, or get your book published. Or if you give up on writing. The death dates would be a little different, but they would still be here, about this same time.” Sophia's eyes soften. “There are two other tombstones in this cemetery that belong to people who committed suicide without your book.”

Sylvia sniffled and wiped away a tear she didn't realize had fallen. “So, are you trying to guilt me into writing? Try to convince me that my book is the only reason they wouldn't commit suicide?”

“No,” Sophia said. “Well, yes and no. I'm trying to convince you that our writing matters. That's why you've hated writing since your sister killed herself. You thought that she was the only one that really cared about what you wrote and with her gone, you didn't think it mattered.” She pulled up the sleeve on her left arm, revealing three horizontal scars across her wrist. “I'm you, remember? I know what you did. I know what you wanted to do and what you forced yourself not to do. But Charlotte doesn't have what you had. So you need to be that for her.”

Sylvia looked away and wiped away a few more tears. “And what would that be?”

“A sister.”

Sylvia knelt at the tombstone and ran her fingers over the engraving. “This is going to happen if I don't publish my sister's story?”

“Yes,” Sophia agreed. “You will end up right back here someday, but it's a matter of whether it'll be in a few weeks or a few decades.”

Sylvia sniffled again and stood back up. “I'll finish it,” she mumbled, unable to produce a louder voice than that.

“Say that again.”

“I'll finish Dickens' Daughter,” she said louder, but her voice cracked. “I'll finish the book and I'll make sure it's published. And I'll give Charlotte a copy the next time I see her.”

“Good,” Sophia says. “I would take you back, but I did say that this was your last trip.”

Sylvia took a step back out of shock. “What do you mean, my last trip? You mean last trip of the night?”

Sophia smiled, but it was fake. “Sure, we'll go with that.” She began walking away, but didn't seem to have any intentions of letting Sylvia follow her.

“Where are you going?” Sylvia called after her older self.

“Back to my time. I hope it's different than it was when I left!”

“How will I get home?”

“Just wake up!”

“So this is just a dream? It's not real?”

Sophia turned around and barked a laugh. “Oh course it's a dream, dummy! But why should that make it any less real?”

She turned back and was almost to her car when Sylvia remembered something. “Wait! Charles Dickens started to say something when we were at Charlotte's house! He said that my writing will be something but cut himself off and said that you'd explain. What was he going to say?”

Sophia didn't answer until she'd opened the backseat's door. She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Your writing will be remembered.”

Sylvia didn't know how she did it. She wandered the cemetery for what seemed like hours, but the sun never rose. Eventually, she went back to Charlotte's grave and leaned against the tombstone to rest. But when she opened her eyes, it wasn't the marble she felt, but soft pillows and sheets.

She sat up abruptly, looking around. Sunlight streamed through her bedroom window and she was in bed, still dressed the way she'd been during her writing session.

But shock made her almost fall out of bed to get to her laptop. “I have to finish the last chapter!” she practically yelled to the empty apartment.

Sylvia opened her laptop and let it start up while she ran into the kitchen to find her phone. It was still attached to the cord from the wall and it was fully charged, so while she raced back to her room while checking the time. She was supposed to send her manuscript by noon – it was nine in the morning.

She sat down at her laptop, opened the document, and began typing as fast as her fingers would move. She had the actual ideas written out in her head, so it became a matter of getting them written out.

Two hours later, stomach growling and in serious want of caffeine, Sylvia typed out the words, “And after that, she knew what to do,” saved the document, and opened up her web browser. She knew that if she reread the chapter, she would want to rewrite it – she would save that for if her editor didn't like it – so she sent it in as it was.

Five minutes later, her cell phone rang. “I got your email. Is it the whole thing?” It was her editor, Donna.

“Would I have sent it if it wasn't?” Sylvia asked, laughing. “The ending is a little different than the first time, but I think you're going to like it.”

“I'm sure I will. I'll send you a printed copy with all of the pretty red marks you love so much by the end of the month.”

“Great!” Sylvia cheered. “I need to go call my mother, but if you need to talk about Dickens' Daughter, just let me know.”

“I will,” Donna said. Sylvia heard the typing of a keyboard in the background. “I'll probably speak with you again tomorrow about it.”

“Okay, bye.”

They hung up and Sylvia took her phone to the kitchen to make some coffee and call her mother.

When she answered, the first thing out of Sylvia's mouth was, “You know what today is?”

“The day you come home for dinner?”

“I will if you'd like, but I just sent a very important email with a very important document attached to it with a very important title and I thought I should tell my very important mother about my finished manuscript that is currently being edited by my very important editor who will send me the red X-ed version by the end of the month.”

There was a loud noise that sounded something like a squeal from the other end of the phone. “You finished it?”

“Yes, I did!” She drew out the 'yes' for a few seconds, too excited to be mature. “And I might see if she can email me a scanned copy of her edits of the first chapter so I can show it to you!”

“You're awfully excited about this.”

Sylvia smirked to herself. “I had a good dream last night. Anyway, I thought I'd call to tell you, but I need to call Uncle Pete. I have something I want to talk to Charlotte about.”

“Oh, what's that?”

“It's kind of a secret. It has to do with my dream. But I should go. I want to catch them before they go anywhere for he day.”

They hung up and Sylvia immediately dialed her uncle. “Hey,Uncle Pete. Does Charlotte have any plans for the day?”

“Who is this?”

“Oh, sorry, I thought you had my number. It's Sylvia. I just wanted to let you know that I just sent my manuscript to my editor and I know that I haven't seen you in a while, especially Charlotte, and I wanted to see if her and I could go get lunch and see a movie or something.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “I guess so, as long as all of her schoolwork is done. Let me ask her real quick.” There was a pause and Sylvia heard him hollering for Charlotte and asking her if her homework was done. Then, he came back on the line. “She's free. Are you going to come by and pick her up or should we drop her off?”

“Oh, I can come pick her up. And I'll have her home by six. I might take her shopping or something. I just want to hang out with my cousin for a while.”

“How about you stay for dinner then?”

“Actually, my mom asked me to come over tonight, but if you'd like, I can come over tomorrow night or tomorrow after church.”

“That sounds good. We'll see you in a few minutes?”

“Actually I need to get dressed, so more like an hour.”

“Oh. Okay. We'll see you then. Ill tell Charlotte to get ready.”

“Okay. Thanks Uncle Pete!”

Another pause. “No problem, sweetheart.”

They both hung up and Sylvia smiled as she walked back to her room and right past her laptop, where the full title of her novel was in the middle of the document:

DICKENS' DAUGHTER:
A STORY OF LOVE, JANE AUSTEN, AND MY SISTER, MARLENE
by Sylvia S. Williams