By Rosemarie DiCristo
On Christmas Eve, Belle awoke as the toll of the neighboring church bell struck four quarters, then rang the hour with one hollow, melancholy chime. Before she could roll over with the hope of falling back asleep, the bed curtains were sharply drawn aside.
She let out a half-scream when she saw the figure before her: child-like, but with long white hair. It wore a tunic trimmed with summer flowers, yet it held a branch of fresh holly, and upon its head was a crown of light, which made all visible.
“Do not be afraid,” the figure said, though the words did little good; Belle was very much afraid. Actually, she was terrified. Then the spirit said, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. Rise and walk with me,” and Belle knew if she wasn’t lying in bed, she would have fallen in a swoon.
The spirit put out its hand, its voice urgent. “Come.”
“What? Why? And to where? I don’t—”
“I am to show you things it would behoove you to remember. Scenes from your past,” it replied.
She drew in a quick breath and a small smile played about her lips. “I have been widowed these nine months. Will I see… my love?”
“In a way. You will see how your choices affected the lives of others. But my time is short. Come.”
The spirit took her hand, and immediately they stood in a street alive with children at play.
Belle could name every one of her girlfriends, but also the boy standing somewhat apart from the others.
The ten-year-old Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Why him? Why now? She hadn’t thought of him in decades.
Before Belle could ask, the child Ebenezer raced to the child Belle and pulled her pigtail.
“Why did you laugh?” asked the spirit, meaning the adult Belle, just now, as she observed that long-ago event.
“Did I laugh?”
“Indeed, whole-heartedly. But you pretended to be annoyed, then.”
“Then, yes. But…” She spoke grudgingly. “He could be charming.”
“Let us see another time.”
Suddenly, the slightly older Belle was kneeling at a babbling brook as an also older Ebenezer re-enacted magical tales of Ali Baba, bowing low and inviting her to be Scheherazade.
She watched her younger self leap to her feet.
“Oh, what adventures we…!” Belle shook her head. “That was a different time… No, I will not remember it.”
The spirit merely asked, “Shall we see another scene?”
Belle’s former self grew larger still, as did Ebenezer’s, as the spirit whisked through various events. Walks in the woods. Picnics in grassy fields. Rowing on the lake. Always wonderfully happy.
“There is one scene we’ve yet to see,” the spirit said, but Belle protested.
“I do not wish to see it.”
Yet the spirit waved a hand and there was Ebenezer the businessman. Cold, uncaring, avaricious. And there was Belle, breaking their engagement.
“Your need to escape poverty has changed you, and your feelings toward me. Would you, today, choose a dowerless girl? I think not; nay, you would come to resent me. And so, I release you, Ebenezer. One day, if you remember this at all, our time will be like an unprofitable dream from which you gladly awoke.”
“I do not want release! I have not changed toward you!”
But Belle left Ebenezer alone. Only now, she saw tears glistening in his eyes.
“Remove me,” she murmured. “I cannot stand it.”
She found herself back in her bed and quickly sank into a heavy sleep.
***
This time, Belle was awakened by a bright light and saw a figure in a deep green robe, surrounded by all manner of food and greenery.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” it said before she could ask. “Come.”
The spirit whisked her through scenes of present-day London. Ebenezer bringing food to his employee, Mr. Cratchit, and his family—and staying for a spot of tea. Ebenezer taking barrows of toys to the orphanage—and staying to play blindman’s-bluff with the children. Ebenezer having Christmas dinner at his nephew’s house—and staying to lead the music and dance.
As Belle tapped her foot and clapped her hands, she remembered the spirit and realized it was looking at her.
“A small matter,” it said, “to make people happy in these ways.”
“Indeed?” The heat in her voice surprised her. “Not everyone would be so generous with their time and money.”
A hearty laugh made her turn back to the vision. Ebenezer’s laugh: one that set everyone there laughing, just as it always had, before.
Belle had not heard it for years.
The spirit waved its hand again. It was late evening, and Belle saw Ebenezer in his dark, drafty rooms, forsaken and alone.
“Tell me, spirit, that this man does not spend all his nights in such a way.”
“Many others besides you have had nothing to do with him for decades. Old habits die hard.”
And then Belle was back in her rooms.
This spirit was the most frightening, shrouded in a deep-black garment that left nothing visible but a skeletal, outstretched hand. When Belle took it, she returned to Ebenezer’s rooms, but the man was dead, alone, and had been for some time.
The sight hit her like a knife to the heart.
“Spirit, no! Is there no way to change this?”
Instantly she was in her bedroom, and it was daylight. She quickly dressed and hurried to Ebenezer’s house, for if this had been some bizarre dream, if it was somehow Christmas Day, he wouldn’t be at Scrooge and Marley’s.
He opened his door and started to find her on his doorstep.
She could not stop the smile that flooded her face upon seeing him alive. “Might you come round for Christmas dinner, Ebenezer?”
And Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath, said, “I think I might.”
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What a wonderful change of perspective on an oft-told tale.
I LOVE THIS!!! Thank you, Rosie, for (1) making me cry this morning, and (2) showing redemption in such a wonderful day!
God bless us all, every one.