Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton Read Free Book Online Page B

fear. These people were afraid. They spoke of “dark energy” and “angry spirits,” none of which described Ben.
    Jason drummed his fingers on his keyboard, staring blankly out his living room window as he debated. From his seat on the couch, he could see the door at the end of the cobblestone path, but he couldn’t see the second floor.
    He had one final option—one he’d refused to consider until now: What if he wasn’t going crazy? What if Ben was exactly what he claimed to be—a young man from the nineteenth century who’d somehow found himself trapped in a snow globe? It was impossible, yes. Crazy, even. And yet . . .
    It was the option he suddenly wanted to believe.
    He googled “snow globe.”
    Most sources speculated that snow globes had been invented in France, seemingly in the early nineteenth century as a sort of spin-off of the popular glass paperweights used at the time. Most agreed that the first documented sales of the trinkets had been in 1878 at the Paris Universal Expo, and that by 1879, several companies were producing them and selling them throughout Europe. But the truth was, nobody knew for sure when the first ones had been created.
    It didn’t exactly confirm Ben’s story, but it didn’t disprove it, either.
    Finally, he googled, “Can a person be trapped in a snow globe?” although he felt silly even typing the words. “I sure hope nobody’s checking my browser history,” he mumbled as he hit Enter.
    The search engine returned several listings, but every one of them had more to do with entertainment than with hauntings or real-life experiences. There were movies, novels, and short stories, but nothing that hinted at the paranormal.
    Nothing that explained Ben.
    He set his laptop aside and went to the window, staring thoughtfully up at the second-story loft. After finally conceding that Ben might be real, it was disappointing not to find him staring down from the guesthouse.
    He grabbed the keys off the hook by the door and returned to the garage. The door at the top of the stairs was still closed, and Jason opened it cautiously, feeling like an intruder.
    “Ben?”
    But he found the room empty. The snow globe sat on the desk, exactly where he’d left it before storming out the previous day. He lifted it and peered inside, but saw only the cheesy little fake cottage with its tiny snow-capped trees. He shook the globe gently, causing little flurries of fake snow. “Ben? Can you hear me? Are you in there?”
    Still nothing.
    He set the globe back down, feeling as if he’d been rudely awoken from a rather pleasant dream. After spending the entire morning convincing himself the incident had been real, he felt cheated at not being able to face Ben again now.
    Maybe he’d imagined it, after all. And yet . . .
    He hefted the globe again and weighed it in his hand, considering.
    Believe Ben, or discount his own sanity and start searching for a doctor? Those were the choices, and it seemed as if his entire life hinged on his decision.
    “To hell with it,” he muttered. “I’m beginning to think sanity is overrated anyway.”

 

     
    Ben didn’t appear that day. Jason kept the globe next to him in the living room while he watched TV and checked his email. He took it into the kitchen with him while he made dinner and ate. Occasionally, he called Ben’s name, but as the day wore on, he felt more and more ridiculous. His only consolation was that Ben hadn’t yet appeared in the guest room window, either. Eventually, Jason gave up on Ben—and on late-night television—and dragged himself off to bed, leaving the globe on the dining room table.
    He dreamed of Dylan. They were on the set of Summer Camp Nightmare 4 , trying to shoot a scene together. Jason was sure they’d decided to cast Dylan opposite him as the love interest, and he was anxious to get to their big kiss, but every time he read a line, Dylan scowled and told him it was wrong. And no matter how hard Jason tried to read