by Aine Dyer
So he had to change Scrooge’s thoughts on the whole business. On life. On Christmas. On everything.
That was a pretty big goal for Scrooge as well as for Marley. His plan already had two ghosts; one for the past and one for the present. Did he need another? He knew the power of both the past and present would definitely help, but maybe he could use something else. Like…showing Scrooge his future? Marley thought that if he saw that his future was an insignificant death following an insignificant life, that he would possibly change him. Or, Scrooge would end up in the fire. And, if Marley was not successful, isn’t that where he would end up as well?
He knew Death was the only one that would change Ebenezer Scrooge.
Death.
So Marley had to find Death. But Death had been everywhere during his life. All the news reports - big ones and little ones - always included who had died and how. Death was quite a celebrity among the living. The reporters loved to write about Death in every way and always sensationalized it to get the throngs to listen.
He turned his head to look around him. Death ruled where he was but yet the Spirit was no where to be found. The specters that roamed this godforsaken place were dead. Nothing lived here. Everything was just an existence. Finally, he looked next to him and decided to ask his brother.
“Robert, how do I find Death?” Marley asked.
Robert gazed around. “Jacob, I think you’ve found it,” he said.
“I mean Death itself. You know, the physical being that visits,” Marley said.
“You mean a manifestation of a physical being called Death,” Robert said trying to understand.
“If you want to be very detailed,” Marley said rather exasperated, “then yes. The Spirit of Death.”
“You would have to go everywhere for that. I mean, on the living side, Death is all around us all the time. Flowers die, animals die, and people die. It’s like birth I guess,“ Robert said.
“You must’ve seen Death when I died didn’t you?” Marley asked.
Robert got quiet for a while as they roamed.
“I saw something, Jacob, but I’m not sure what.”
“I think the idea of Death may be the final motivator for Ebenezer,” Marley said.
“I’m sure a man like Scrooge knows that Death exists. You saw how he reads those papers every day and they are filled with it.”
“Maybe he knows about it but doesn’t consider it,” Marley said.
“But he saw it happen to you. You saw that no one showed up, that you were just put into the ground without any caring from anyone else,” Robert said.
“Maybe because he doesn’t know any different,” Marley said.
“Maybe or maybe he just doesn’t care,” Robert said.
“Gosh, if that’s the case then I’m probably going to fail.” Marley said with a bit of despondence in his voice.
“I don’t know how you pin down something like Death, Jacob, when it infiltrates life all of the time.”
They roamed for a little while longer. And then all the thoughts swirling around in Marley’s head stopped and one came to the surface.
“I need you to help me find the Spirit of Christmas Past,” Marley said.
“Why now?” Robert asked like a big brother trying to protect his younger, more impulsive brother.
“Well, because I want to see something. Robert, you got me to it once. Now I really need to find it again.” Marley pleaded with his brother.
Robert’s gray face looked frustrated. “Jacob, it’s not like I can just find the Spirit. Let me think for a while.”
And they roamed together with Robert never looking up from the gray ground and running through other gray ones as they moved. He shook his head a few times and then looked like he was talking to himself but finally slowed enough to look at Marley.
“Okay, take it,” Robert said holding out his arm. The roaming sped up, leaving Marley‘s head spinning.
“Thaaaannnnkkkkkk yyyyyoooouuu,” Marley yelled as they spun through time and place.
Finally they landed near Fan Scrooge’s graveyard in London close to Marley‘s house. They were just on their side of the veil. “It is lurking somewhere close.” Robert seemed to sense the ghost’s presence. Marley stared at his brother incredulously.
“Robert,” Marley whispered, “how do you know these things?”
“I don’t know, Jacob. I was given this when I got here but I never used it until you came.” And then Robert stopped talking and was more intent on finding the Spirit. Finally Marley could see a bright light emanating from a thicket of small trees in a dreary park.
Robert approached slowly. “Ghost of Christmas Past, I have met you before with my brother Jacob,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Yes,” it answered barely looking at them. “The Marley brothers. What can I do for you today?”
Marley immediately spoke up. “Spirit, can you please show me the memory of my death?”
The Spirit floated up and stared at him for a little while as if it was thinking about his request. “I don’t usually appear on a gray one’s time. Also my part has always been to show Christmas memories. Not death,” the Spirit loomed with its heart, if indeed it had one, in heaviness.
“Please Spirit, I beg of you. I need to see what happened when I passed,” Marley said again.
The Spirit recoiled back strangely as if Marley had spoken a vulgarity at a church supper. “Death is a living place thing, but I know it. I’ve met it once before as everything does. But, Mr. Marley, you cannot speak to it during our time together.”
“Yes, Spirit, I know. Thank you,” Marley said.
The Spirit gave Robert a look of amazement and plucked a living flower from its dress and held it out for Marley.
Moving too fast to touch the flower, Marley, accidentally knocked his left arm on a tree limb causing him to lunge forward and his pocket to open. He watched as the crystal dropped to the ground in slow motion, only to see a small hand reach from underneath of him, catch it and disappear. The next thing Marley saw was his deathbed in his room on Lime Street.
“The crystal!” he cried out staring at his open pocket in disbelief. But no one in the room could hear him. The Spirit just floated next to him, staring.
“Here is what you seek, Mr. Marley. Look over in the corner in the shadows. Death doesn’t like to make a spectacle of itself.”
There in a sunken bed, Marley lay lonely and sad, in the darkened room with only a tiny light on the bed table. Over in the far corner of the dismal room was a shadow that was cloaked in a black, ripped cloth like it had been thrown over a skinny coat rack and disregarded like garbage. The temperature in the room must have fallen because Marley could now see breath coming out of his dying body’s mouth and nose. The shadow approached the dying man, looked at his face, and then glanced upwards towards the ceiling like it was waiting for something.
There was no noise in the room as the ceiling above his bed opened up to reveal a beautiful light erupting from a large glowing hole. From out of the hole, Marley saw visions of his parents smiling and when he looked at his dying face he saw a look of peace on it. Then he saw his mother and father scream as the hole slammed shut with a clapping sound of the loudest thunder ever heard.
CRACK!
He looked back to see that Death had vanished, leaving Marley’s face terrified and his spirit rising up out of his body confused.
“That was Heaven,” he whimpered.
Heaven. The word coldly jutted through his soul and the vision squeezed him until he looked and saw Robert sitting at the edge of the bed, shuttering with sobs because, Marley knew, he had seen it too.“Take me back now, please Spirit,” Marley’s voice was deflated. “Take me back.”
And looking the Spirit in its eyes, Marley said, “Thank you.”
He placed one hand over his empty pocket and grabbed onto the dying flower as if it was the only lifeline he had.
Chapter 11
The Light
December 24th, 1842
At midnight on December 24th, the eve of Christmas Day, disappointment had claimed Marley as he roamed, his metal accessories clanking behind him in a terrific noise. “No rest for the weary,” Marley remarked while he floated into the cold gray mist. He had been roaming for what seemed like eternity, which it was, because it had been almost a year in earth time that his crystal had vanished.
He had continuously asked Robert what he had seen the day the crystal had been lost.
“Are you sure that you didn’t see anything when I went with the Spirit?” Marley would ask. He always hoped that there was something that Robert had remembered now that a little time had gone by.
And Robert would always say: “Again, Jacob, I was looking the other way when it fell from your hand and there was just a second that I saw a fleeting apparition. It was short and small and vanished very quickly. I’m sorry that I can’t be more assistance to you.”
And then Marley would say: “I know,” with some disbelief.
The tiny hand that had stolen Marley’s only treasure plagued his mind. Over and over he replayed the moment of seeing the hand beneath him taking the crystal with it always ending up in the end of the vision seeing himself plunging into the fire. Whoever it was, Marley - possibly for the first time in his life and death - prayed that the light didn’t go out. He knew it was a long shot for him to try and use the crystal for his one unmerited heavenly trip, but he had to try. Now it was the eve of Christmas Day again and Marley noticed that nothing ever changed. It was all the same roaming into the gray ones.
During the year he had thought about other things as well and with Christmas the next day, he had finally decided to reveal to Robert what he had been thinking about.
“Robert, you must know. How do you talk to Death?”
“I have no idea, Jacob,” Robert said.
“Robert, honestly, my brother, I don’t know about any of this. What I did know about when I was alive was numbers and no one or no thing has any use for that now. And you seem to know these Spirits. You know how to find them.”
He stared down at the ground and then back at his empty left hand, again.
“What you knew about, Jacob, was money. And money is strictly an earthly thing,” Robert said.
They roamed farther but Marley was focused on how that nothing ever changed.
“We have come around another earthly year and tomorrow is Christmas again. We will have a small time to be free to find your crystal,” Robert said.
“I’m no longer sure I want to find it, Robert. I am starting to think that this is my destiny. What I was made for. What I was meant to do. I obviously missed something during my life that other people have or are born with. It might’ve been love or kindness or empathy. I know our parents gave that to us but money, for me, replaced it. And I gave no love to anyone except my profession. And now here we are paying dearly for our bad choices. How stupid I was, Robert!” And Marley’s voice broke out into a slow tortured moan that echoed through the other restless souls.
“Jacob, I didn’t realize the quitting was part of your make up.”
“It’s just seems pointless now,” Marley said. He rattled his cash boxes and cried another depressed howl.
“Let’s try the Christmas Present tonight to see if help is available,” Robert said grabbing Marley’s arm. “After all, his name is Christmas Present.”
Marley went with Robert. The light would arrive anytime now and Robert, Marley guessed, wanted to be first to see it. The light exploded in front of them and this time the Spirit who emerged was middle aged.
“Robert Marley, how do you do sir?” Christmas Present said making Robert smile enthusiastically.
“Spirit, my brother Jacob has all but given up on his task to keep himself and Scrooge from the fire.”
A despondent Marley did not look up.
The Spirit thought for a moment and then said, “both of you come with me,” and smiled. Marley finally lifted his eyes and touched the ghost’s robe at the same time as Robert.
Marley closed his eyes. The disappointment in his soul at failing was tearing away at him. When they had stopped and Marley opened his eyes again, they now were at the entrance to a cemetery.
A carriage waited in front of the iron gate.
The Spirit motioned for them to follow him. As they approached, Marley remembered that he had been there before.
“We know this place,” Marley said to Christmas Present, “it’s where Ebenezer’s sister Fan is buried.”
While they walked, Marley could see quick flashes of light close to the ground near Fan’s tombstone ahead. He immediately saw the little boy who was flicking the crystal through his hands. Marley lurched towards him but he tripped on his cash box and the boy skittered quickly over to Fan’s grave.
He stopped when he saw what was happening at Fan’s final resting place.
There, at the grave, was Ebenezer‘s nephew and his wife speaking a prayer towards the mother that he never knew. When the prayer was done, Fred gently placed lavender flowers on her grave. Fan’s ghost stood, invisible to her son, crying.
Jean stood beside him. “That was beautiful,” she whispered. “I’m sure she could hear you.”
Fred pushed the water away from under his eyes. “Yes, it was good to finally know where she rests.”
“And peacefully, too,” Jean said. “But we must hire someone to come and clean it out.”
Fred nodded and rose, took his wife’s arm, and began to walk back towards the carriage. “Let’s go have our Christmas now.”
“Thank you,” Fan said running up and giving Marley a hug. His first thought was to pull away but something kept him there and he let himself be hugged by her. He saw the frightened boy behind her holding his crystal.
“Young man, I need my crystal back,” Marley said as quietly as he could. Charles ran and hid behind Christmas Present.
The Spirit stopped Marley for a moment.
“Jacob, do you know what that crystal does?”
“Yes Spirit, it’s going to keep me out of the hellfire,” Marley said.
The Spirit smiled and held out his hand to Charles who slowly placed the crystal in it. The child smiled up at him. The crystal glowed with a light so bright that Marley had trouble looking at it. It was like Spirit, crystal and boy all beamed brightly together.
“This crystal…the brighter it gets…helps one go to Heaven.”
The Spirit placed the crystal in Marley’s hand the the light dimmed. Marley stared at it for a second and looked at Fan and little boy. “Would it help them get to Heaven?” Marley asked. The Spirit answered with a tiny nod. Marley, for only a moment, lamented what he was about to do but then looked at the little boy and the woman spirit who, it seemed by no fault of their own, were stuck in this gray place with no way out. He stared at his crystal again and wondered if it was honestly, really his or if he could give it away.
Marley walked slowly towards the boy who flinched a little when he got close.
“Son, would you take Fan with you?”
“Yes, Mr. Marley, I will,” Charles said. He stood and smiled at Christmas Present.
“Here son, take this.” Marley said while his face signed a little in sadness. He gently placed the stone in Charles’ hand.
Charles ran back to Fan. The light of the crystal swelled until the boy could no longer hold it in his hand forcing him to drop it in front of them. The light grew in size until it formed a large glowing doorway, which Marley recognized as the kind of light he saw in the ceiling of his bedroom during his final moments. A shape of a man emerged from the light and Fan’s face smiled with a cry and Marley guessed it was her husband. Behind him a smiling woman reached out and grabbed the boy swallowing him in light with a hug. The four spirits dissipated into the doorway and when they could be seen no more, the light fell like a shower into the ground and faded into the dirt.
The crystal that held the light lay still. Marley picked it up and l
ooked at it and although it didn’t sparkle anymore, he could still see a little tiny bit of light floating around inside. He placed it carefully back in his pocket.
“Jacob Marley, how unselfish of you!” Christmas Present billowed happily. Marley noticed right then of how much just the Spirit’s voice made him think of light.
“Jacob?” Robert asked.
“Yes, it was right…it was what it was right. I can roam here forever, Robert, but that woman and a little boy…it’s dangerous here for them. And I wanted to see them happy,” he said. Marley felt lighter. He looked down at his feet and saw that his chain was floating up with him and his cash-boxes hovered over the ground.
“I’m happy to see them happy too, Jacob,” Robert said.
The Spirit poked its head in between them both. “I am incredibly happy! And on my birthday no less! Come gentlemen, I must return. But there’s one stop we must make first.”
Chapter 12
Death Gets an Introduction
December 25th, 1842
“Come, we must hurry or I will perish before we get there,” Christmas Present said.
The two Marleys grabbed the thick robe and swayed through time, darkness, and light until they reached a place that Marley knew well.
“This was my house,” Marley said as Robert stood staring.
“This is where Ebenezer lives now,” the frail Spirit said. “Come inside with me.”
Marley watched as Robert and the Spirit disappeared through the front door. Marley floated near the door. “Here I go,” he assured himself. He pulled his head through the door and at first he kept his eyes closed but then he opened them to see he was in between the two wall segments. Dust, spider webs, and scurrying feet met his gaze. And then poof he was out on the other side looking at the inside of his house.
Marley followed the Spirit and Robert up the circular stair and entered the bedroom where his dead body laid almost seven years to the day. When they entered, Marley saw Scrooge, sitting by himself and complaining to no one about days off at Christmas. Marley stopped and stood next to his friend, frowning.