Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories

By the time I reached the vessel the paper had burst into yellow flame and shrivelled to a blackened crust, and the wax effigy itself was starting to melt. It was a rather horrid sight, as recognizable human features began to run together. Recognizable indeed, for it was a good likeness, a perfect likeness of Jacob Marley.

“Hey!” I called to the girl’s rapidly retreating back, forgetting my ghostly state. “You hexed the wrong man!”

The effigy was beginning to melt rapidly, and I put my hand into the pot, attempting to retrieve it. A firm, transparent grip on my wrist prevented me.

“You are free to observe only,” said the Ghost of Christmas Past, “not to intervene. The past cannot be altered, even in fiction.”

So we stood, three ill-matched spectres in the sooty darkness as snow began to fall lightly over the scene, watching the effigy slowly dissolve and run in rivulets of molten wax around and between the hot coals.

“I don’t understand,” said Marley’s Ghost.

“It’s a form of black magic,” I explained. “A wax image of the victim is slowly melted with appropriate curses or whatever.”

“That bright-eyed, dimpled, fresh-faced child involved in such dark deeds? I find that difficult to comprehend.”

“She was driven to it by necessity, I think.”

“Oh?” Marley’s Ghost was puzzled. “Not by me, surely.”

“No. By your partner. She wants to marry Fred, you see, as in time she will and make him very happy. And I suppose in time she will also secretly be glad that her attempt at witchcraft failed. It wasn’t her fault, of course, that it did, or the sorcerer’s either. Apparently he mistook you for Scrooge. I gather you sometimes answered to the name of Scrooge, as it is written of him: ‘Sometimes people... called Scrooge Scrooge and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.’”

Marley’s Ghost nodded solemnly, his jaws clacking together under the white bandage.

“We were like that, as it were one person in two bodies. It was also a device for keeping clients guessing. If an unwanted solicitor asked for Mr. Marley, he would be out for the day. I would be Mr. Scrooge. It was something of a game, I venture.”

“A game that cost you your life.”

Just at that moment Marley’s Ghost gave a gasp and backed into the baked potato can, pointing at something with a trembling finger. Following his gesture I saw Marley himself, in the flesh, a solid identical twin of my companion of the evening in all aspects except the bandage, stumbling eastward, somewhat unsteady on his feet, as though the curse had already begun to take effect. He tripped on a loose paving stone and fell through me, catching himself on the large round handle of the can. He leaned on it an instant to get his balance and inadvertently looked down into the glowing coals of the fire pot. The effigy had melted from the back of the head forward and the face now spread over the coals like a projected relief map. I tried to shield Marley from the sight, but of course he saw through me, as many do. With a cry the poor fellow staggered back, holding his chest, took three steps forward, and fell. We three stood there, helpless in our insubstantiality, and watched a crowd gather around the stricken man, make a corridor for a doctor to come through, and then close up again around him, and after a while six strong men, like premature pallbearers, carried the dying man down the street to his chambers. For though some of the bystanders weren’t certain whether this was Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley, all knew that he was one of those gentlemen and that his home was above the wine cellars and offices in the old dark house in the courtyard off Lime Street.

Chimes sounded again from the tower of St. Andrew’s Church. It must be six, I reasoned. The great bell tolled once and fell silent. I waited, straining in the sudden oppressive silence for the bell to go on. But it did not. All was darkness and stillness around me, and I was alone. Where was I now? In Scrooge’s dark chambers above the wine cellars and holiday vacant offices? He could not have been more alone than I was. I sat back, for wherever I was, I was sitting, and wished fervently for companionship, longed to hear the ominous clank of chains, to see some otherworldly luminosity break through the terrible blackness. Then I knew what was Scrooge’s curse, and Marley’s, to be alone and lonely on Christmas.

In the distance I heard voices, faint but growing stronger. The voices surely of an angel choir sent to redeem my hardened soul. I welcomed it as it drew near.