In His Kiss (short story)

In His Kiss was a short story in the Lethbridge-Stewart series released by Candy Jar Books in 2016. It was set in Lethbridge-Stewart's childhood.

Summary
World War II has been raging during Jemima Fleming's whole time at the High School for Girls: a time of shapeless make-do-and-mend clothes, rationing, and the only young male teacher allegedly parachuted into occupied France to assist the Resistance. However, she's lucky that her father is too old to serve and so her family, unlike many others, haven't lost anyone or fear they will. To do her part, she's helping teach at Sunday School. She's also now courting her old Bledoe Cadets friend Henry Barnes and is growing bothered he seems unwilling to touch or kiss her.

Jemima also has recurring nightmares of James Lethbridge-Stewart's death, something her sister Joy notices Alistair never seems to act like he remembers. Ever since that death, Jemima has lost some of her original spirit; unknown to anyone, especially Henry, she continues to draw sketches of James.

When the Lethbridge-Stewarts help organise a Sunday School event, Jemima is struck by how close to adulthood Alistair is becoming (as a clear substitute for his brother). After quick-thinking Alistair saves a child, Lottie Greenwood, from drowning, Jemima has flashbacks to James's death and departs. She starts to hear James's voice haunting her but when Alistair finds her, she impulsively kisses him. He feels he's taken advantage, even though she argues she has, and she drops the issue. Later, feeling James's presence again, she burns the drawings and has a vision of his spirit visiting her in bed.

The next morning, the same morning she hears Alistair's dad is MIA, Jemima sees her paintings reforming and suffers a mental breakdown - and is also found to be pregnant, a problem as Henry never "fumbled" enough for it to be believably his. She's quietly and quickly sent by her parents and Pastor Stone to a care facility run by his sister, with Henry not seeing her off but Alistair trying to reach her train in time. At the home, she misses VE Day and learns her baby is due at New Year's, a baby she's sure is somehow from James; Alistair writes to inform her he's soon moving to Lancashire.

Four months into her pregnancy, she gives birth: her water is green and burns, and home matron Annabelle Stone considers that the dead infant seems an entirely other species. Annabelle Stone covers up the exact nature of the early birth, even from Jemima. Knowing the pregnancy will be quietly forgotten and her breakdown viewed as 'sensitivity' due to the war, Jemima tells the haunting presence to depart (believing it now cannot be James as he would never have left).

Returning home, Jemima is determined to marry Henry and find an attraction to him, only for him to have little to say when he picks her up. She meets Alistair to say goodbye before the family leaves, only for him and his mother to blank her as if they don't remember who she is; this causes her to decide she had no feelings for the "dull boy". To her surprise, Henry says Alistair was asking the other day if she still draws. She lies she "can't draw for toffee".

Characters

 * Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
 * Jemima Fleming
 * Henry Barnes
 * Joy Fleming
 * Annabelle Stone

Continuity

 * The story is set after chapter 11 of The Forgotten Son.
 * While Jemima and Joy don't know this, Alistair acts like he's never had a brother as, due to the Great Intelligence's machinations in The Forgotten Son, he genuinely no longer remembers. He later blanks her for the same reason: while she's been gone, his memories have been altered to remove her from them.