“He’s too fat for a tenor,” retorted the English woman. “He’s a baritone by the look of him.”
“A baritone vill do in a pinch, Mary,” said the lithe Russian. “As you English say, beggars can’t be floozies.”
“Wait,” I said. “Do you need me to sing a song with you? Because I happen to belong to an a cappella group and I do know a few tenor lines. Do you want to do Angels we have Heard on High again?”
“We’ve already done it,” said the other male spirit, in an Irish brogue. “And we never sing the same one twice.”
“But vee must sing zem, darlingk. And you must help us.”
“Sure,” I said, for I am not one of those people who is embarrassed to sing in public. Quite the reverse. I’m the one who embarrasses other people with his public singing. “But we can’t be too loud,” I cautioned. “My family is asleep upstairs.”
“Not a problem,” said the Irishman. “We’re not singing here.”
“What? Where are we going?”
“Vee are ze spirits of ze vurld’s zingers,” said Gruff Bass. “Vee zing all around ze world in the ze hope zat vone day vee join ze heavenly choir.”
“Oh, I see,” I replied. “Is that what happened to your other tenors? They got promoted?”
“Pablo did,” came a Gaelic-tinged reply. “Nils was not so fortunate.”
And an eerie quiet fell over the room, as all ghosts looked away and seemed deeply uncomfortable.
“What happened to Nils?” I demanded, entirely horror-stricken. After all, these were the wandering souls of the dead on a dark winter night. If what happened to Nils made them uneasy, it must have been soul-shattering.
Finally Mary, the Englishwoman spoke. “He was, as you mortals would say, reincarnated.”
And all the ghosts shuddered at the word.
“Oh,” I said, “that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Not so bad,” said the Irish ghost. “How can you, of all people, say that? Do you like being a creature of flesh and bone?”
I felt a little affronted. “It’s okay.”
“Okay!” he cried. “To be wracked by the cold winter winds? Burned by the summer sun? Subject to a hundred different diseases and then finally die a long, cold death, begging to be delivered from your misery?”
“Well, when you put it like that, I admit, it doesn’t—”
“Enough of zis bickering,” the Russian interrupted. “Vee must be on our vay before midnight. Tonight is ze feast of Saint Cecila, patron saint of musicians. It is our best chance to make our way to ze heavenly choir.”
Before I could raise any further objections, she lifted her arms, and the whole chamber was swept up in a vortex of light and sound, as though my dining room had turned into a glowing golden bell that spun and spun, until we all reappeared...I did not know where.
We stood before a massive stone edifice, lit up by soft flood lights. A huge green dome sat in the centre with two smaller domes of the same hue, one on each side.
“Ze Berlin Cathedral,” cried Gruff Bass with pride. He must have been German. O Tannebaum, he announced, and I realized with no small amount of anxiety that he expected me to sing the song with them right that moment. No rehearsal or anything!
“I don’t know it!” I called out, which was mostly true. O Christmas Tree, as we English speakers call it, was a loose translation of that German original, so I did know the melody, but I certainly did not know the German words, let alone the tenor part to whatever arrangement they were singing.
“Do not worry,” said one of the women who had not yet spoken, in soft French tones. “You will.”
And to my delighted astonishment, I did. And I sang!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie true sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur
zur Sommerzeit,
Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
We sounded quite good, if it is not too boastful to say. As I mentioned, I have some experience singing, and the ghosts were extremely well rehearsed after Lord knows how many decades or centuries they had been at it. So while it was a shock, I have to admit, to have been transported half way around the world and asked to harmonize in the Fatherland, it was also quite a thrill.
Still, after our rendition, complete with me holding down the tenor section, there was no indication that the powers-that-be were promoting anyone to the Great Glee Club in the sky.
We moved on.
To a frozen, yet smoking, mountaintop that turned out to be a volcano in Iceland.
There I was expected to sing a song called Snaefinner Snojkarl, which sounded daunting until I realized it was nothing more, nor less than Frosty the Snowman translated into Icelandic.
En galdrar voru geymdir
í gömlu skónum hanns:
Er fékk hann þá á fætur sér
fór hann óðara í dans.
Já, Snæfinnur snjókarl,
hann var snar að lifna við,
og í leik sér brá
æði léttur þá,
—uns hann leit í sólskinið.
“Does it matter that no one can hear us?” I wondered aloud when we had finished the last chorus.
“Ze Gods can hear us,” said the Russian, whose name turned out to be Natasha. Then with sudden rage, she shouted at the top of her lungs. “I know you can hear us! Vy don’t you release us, you bastards!” Then she became silent and grabbed reflexively at her midsection, which, in the admittedly dim light of a nearby lava flow, looked suddenly as if it had become more opaque and solid.
“No!” she cried. “Not again.” She was lifted by an unseen hand, writhing in the pain of a rapid re-embodiment, shrinking and aging backward. In seconds she was a young girl, then a baby, and even as she regained a tiny mortal form, she had disappeared.
“So,” I said, “back to the land of living?”
“Zere is no time to mourn her birth,” said the German bass. “Vee must move on before it is too late. If we lose an entire part again, all hope is gone. And recruiting a mortal vas a risk already. Vee cannot do it again!”
Next was Belgium, where we didn’t exactly sing a song I knew, but having grown up in Canada, I was not entirely ignorant of French—thankfully it was not in Flemish—and I managed quite well:
Il est né le divin enfant,
Jouez hautbois, résonnez musette.
Il est né le divin enfant,
Chantons tous son avènement.
Sadly, my luck ran out when we reached Spain. Would it have killed them to do Feliz Navidad? No, it would not have killed them, because I knew for a fact that they were already dead. But no, instead of Feliz Navidad, we sang El Burrito Sabanero which, sadly, does not turn out to mean the burrito with salsa. More like, my little donkey on the plains or something like that. I think it was about riding a burro into Bethlehem. But don’t quote me on that; for the night was long and mucho loco.
It was actually a catchy little tune. And whatever wondrous spell had allowed me to hold my own musically so far continued to hold me in good stead, though a saving grace was that the tenor part was only in half the song.
The women sang the verse
Con mi burrito sabanero
voy camino de Belén
Con mi burrito sabanero
voy camino de Belén
And then the men joined in on the chorus.
Si me ven, si me ven
voy camino de Belén
Si me ven, si me ven
voy camino de Belén
So Spain was a triumph, if I do say so myself. Though I still don’t know the Spanish words for burrito or salsa.
And thus it went. I must admit to a certain schadenfreude when we lost Klaus the Gruff German Bass to reincarnation during our rendition of Es ist für uns eine Zeit angekommen in Lucerne, but I was saddened when the same fate befell Marie, the soft-spoken French alto, as we sang the
Latvian carol, Zie mass vētku zvani.
Still, Mary, Patrick, Isabella and I, all now great friends on a real-name basis, sang our hearts and souls out until the dawn finally emerged over the Estonian countryside. As everyone knows, ghosts must depart this world at dawn and luckily for me, I was not stranded outside Parnu. Instead, like a warm wave, the sunlight picked me up, danced me about, and in just a few moments, deposited me back in my dining room in Leitches Creek.
It was still the night before.
Scarcely ten minutes had passed since I had first heard the ghostly chorus, and yet an epic sore throat told me it had been no dream. Spirits exist in a time outside our own.
I sat down and wondered intensely what had become of my companions. Were they fated to sing again as spirits year after year, in an endless audition for the mysterious conductors of the universe? Or had they all been doomed to walk the earth in mortal life as, indeed, I myself was?
And yet as I sat there, with the fire burning brightly in the stove, our own Tannenbaum adding its energy-efficient LED twinkling, the cats curled up on the softer presents, and my darling bride-to-be slumbering peacefully on the floor above, I recalled that this mortal life is not at all as bad as the ghosts made it out to be. It’s not just sweltering days and nagging colds. It is autumn afternoons, and a sun rising on misty water. It is a quiet cigar enjoyed on a still evening, and the first buds of the spring maple. And yes, even with its obligations and debts, it is Christmas, too. We who sing the songs of this world hit plenty of wrong notes to be sure; too many, I admit. But there is enough harmony to sustain us, if we are patient enough to hear it, and courageous enough to give it voice.
And just as those thoughts had warmed my heart, I detected, far off, farther off than any earthly measure could gauge, the sound of singing. A familiar English carol, which I appreciated. There were a whole host of singers this time; none of this world, but I could still pick out a few voices that were now familiar. Mary, and Patrick, and Isabella. They had made it, after all. Perhaps this was their way of saying thank you.
As I made my way up the stairs to end the momentous night, I smiled happily. “There must be music in spite of everything,” a poet once said, and I quietly joined in, somehow knowing how to sing the original eighteenth century lyrics:
God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas-day
To save poor souls from Satan’s power,
Which long time had gone astray.
And it is tidings of comfort and joy.
Author Notes
One of my passions is singing, so I was eager to write a story that involved vocal music. And since this series was Christmas related, the idea of ghostly carollers seemed natural. I had to rather hastily learn several songs and familiarize myself with several different languages, but it made the story especially fun to read aloud. The nationalities of the ghosts are largely based on which accents I thought I would enjoy doing.
This tale also marked something of a new chapter in my own life, for the years between these stories contained more than their share of unrecorded dismay for the present author. I am glad to say that the dismay has now largely given way to comfort and joy.
The Ghost of the McConnell
Ken Chisholm
It was Christmas Eve, midnight, and I was standing outside the McConnell Library feeling like an idiot.
I was certain I was the victim of a practical joke, but my own natural credulity had seized hold of me. So here I was, standing by the front door of the library expecting someone—I did not know who for sure—to admit me to the library for what had been promised me to be a genuine Christmas ghost experience.
At least that was what had been promised me by the gilt-edged invitation left in my mailbox earlier that day. Jet black letters on creamy, expensive paper stock—an elaborate joke if it was a joke. But I have a circle of friends with imaginative ideas on what constitutes a holiday lark; some of them with personal links to the Regional Library administration. So I thought, as I studied the invitation: What the hey?
I had only a stack of DVDs to keep me indoors this evening and this ghostly invite promised to yield some sort of story that I could retail in my final months as the Cape Breton Regional Library’s Storyteller in Residence.
I heard the distant peal of bells as the few fellow Sydneyites still up made their way to church services. Down the hill from the library, I saw a lonely mini-van as it sped along George Street. Beyond that, Tim Horton’s and the Casino had dimmed their lights and shuttered their doors out of respect for the sanctity of the season and in compliance with provincial labour laws concerning statutory holidays.
I considered the possibility that I had made a mistake in coming and should leave, when a shadowed figure appeared behind the double set of glass doors of the library entrance, causing me nearly to jump out of my chilled skin. The figure did not seem familiar and did not make a point to greet me in any sort of friendly manner as it opened the inside set of doors. It may have been the cold wind rushing from the harbour up Falmouth Street, but I felt an ominous ice-cold shiver envelop my entire body.
The light from a street lamp fell across the person’s features as he—it was definitely a man—worked the lock of the exterior doors. I took a shocked step back when he opened the door to admit me.
“You’re here right on the dot,” he said in a plummy, educated accent. “Good for you.”
He gestured that I should enter. Dumbly, I shuffled into the foyer. In the ambient light of the night-quiet library, I confirmed my initial impression of who had invited me to this unprecedented midnight rendezvous at the McConnell. It was Charles, Prince of Wales, heir to the Throne of Canada.
“You’re Prince Charles!” I postulated.
“Oh, yes, how rude. I’m Charles. You’re Kevin—“
“Ken,” I stammered. “I’m Ken.”
“Of course, Ken,” he said as he gave my hand a firm but quick grasp. “Thank you, Ken, for your wonderful volunteer service on our little charity event. Follow me.”
“Charity event?” I asked.
“Yes, we are doing a paraphysical entity relocation.”
“Pardon?”
“A ghost transplant,” he said, as we rounded the circulation desk, past the rack of new arrivals, and towards the Nova Scotia Room where the books of Cape Breton and Maritime history are shelved. “We simply have too many spooks, and you, having almost no history to speak of, comparatively of course, don’t have nearly enough.”
“Actually,” I interjected, “in the North End, especially around St. Patrick’s Museum—“
The Royal Presence took no notice of my words.
“So to maintain the connection between our colonial citizens and the Monarchy, for the past three or four decades, we have gifted public libraries all over our dominions with our superfluous spirits.”
“You mean the Commonwealth?”
“Quite.”
“But libraries—?”
“They’re spooky to begin with—all those people’s stories contained in inky bonds on shelf after shelf.” He gestured around the main section. “Besides, that’s where we have the highest concentration of electroplasmic phenomena at our own various family digs.”
“Why so many ghosts in palace libraries?”
“It’s where we keep the gin,” he said, as if that explained everything. He led me to the Nova Scotia Room.
Thanks to a paperback I had recently purchased from the McConnell sale cart for a quarter, I knew all of what he said was perfectly plausible. The Prince and The Paranormal detailed our current Royal Family’s long association with the supernatural. Not only were almost all of the Royal residences riddled with revenants—the usual disgraced earls, wronged servant girls, decapitated relations—but also the various generations of female royal consorts all seemed to have their own pet psychic medium who would convey messages from the Othe
r World Beyond our Corporeal Existence.
Prince Charles himself was a documented advocate of psychic healing and other such activities.
But while I had some previous confirming knowledge of all this, here I was in the darkened, empty McConnell in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve with the Prince of Wales about to unleash some shrieking phantasm all in the name of Royal Charity. Events were moving deliriously fast, too fast for me.
“Your file says you have had some experience with ghosts?” he asked as he brought us to a table in the reference room.
“Yes.” I answered, not even considering the fact that I had a file somewhere in Britain. “Last year, I was haunted by an evil ghost version of James Joyce. It’s quite a tale.”
“I’m sure it is. Maybe we’ll have time for it after we finish our mission,” he said, indicating a black knapsack sitting on the table. “Some of the boffins worked up an electromagnetic thingy that funnels the subject spirit into a receptacle for transport.”
He pulled a cylindrical object from the knapsack. It was made of clear glass, so I could see the swirling mass of viscous green smoke-like substance inside.
“Is that a...gin bottle?”
“Quite. Another bit of Royal recycling, what?” the Prince said with an impish grin. “Give us a moment while I prepare to release it.”
“Are these yours?” I asked, pointing to a stack of books next to his knapsack.
“They were here when we arrived,” he said, busy with what looked like an old flip-phone.
“They must be donations for the Library.” Being a compulsive bibliophile, I picked one of the tomes to examine. “Hmm. They’re really old. And they’re in Gaelic.”
A folded paper tucked between the pages caught my attention, but before I could read it, the Prince said we would begin his “procedure,” so I slid it into my jacket pocket. I hope you’re paying attention, as this is an important plot point.
Bringing my attention back to our mission, I finally asked the question I should have asked at the outset.
“Why do you need me here?”
Christmas Stalkings Page 10