The Last of the Spirits Read Online Free

surged up from the black cave of the spectre’s mouth.
    ‘No,’ said Marley’s ghost. ‘The chains are not to bind me. They are to remind me.’
    The word ‘remind’ echoed around the graveyard, bouncing from tombstone to tombstone.
    ‘Remind you of what?’ said Sam. ‘Are you – were you – a blacksmith or something? Or maybe you were buried under a load of chains. Is that how you, er, you know . . . ?’
    Marley’s ghost closed his eyes for a moment and seemed lost in memories.
    ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I did not die in a shipyard accident. Nor did I spend my days at the forge. I was nothing so skilled nor so useful. I was a money man. I worked not far from here in a counting house. We lent money to those who needed it and charged them steeply for the privilege. You know the sort of man?’
    Sam nodded grimly. He had seen their work. Half the people on the streets were there with a little help from money men. Sam and Lizzie were among their number.
    ‘These are the chains I forged for my soul in life and these are the chains I am bound to wear in death. Every link on them I made myself – not by a blacksmith’s skill and honest labour, but rather through my own greed and selfishness. I had not even the wit to be happy at another man’s expense; I simply sought to be richer, as though that, of itself, were some kind of achievement. Never was there a more pointless existence.’
    Sam’s own existence felt far more pointless but he decided not to debate the point. The ghost seemed to read his mind.
    ‘But do not think these chains are bought with gold lust, boy,’ he said. ‘These links are not forged in heat, but by cold hearts. Money-making gives you the means to be heartless, but it doesn’t give you a monopoly on heartlessness. You have a chain yourself if you could but see it.’
    ‘What?’ said Sam, looking down at his feet.
    ‘Yes,’ said Marley’s ghost, peering at Sam and nodding. ‘And while it’s not as long as mine, it’s longer than it ought to be for one so young.’
    ‘Well, that ain’t fair!’ said Sam.
    Marley’s ghost shrugged and took out his pocket watch.
    ‘I have no time to parley with the likes of you, lad,’ he said, turning away and heading for the gateway once again. ‘This is my purpose and I must do as I am bid. Three spirits will follow me. The first will show the past, the second of them the present and the third will reveal the future. They shall show this man the error of his ways.’
    ‘Yeah?’ said Sam, still trying to see the invisible chain he was supposed to have about him. ‘Who’s that then?’
    ‘My old partner in the firm,’ said the ghost, passing through the bars of the gate without opening it. ‘Ebenezer Scrooge.’
    Sam jumped to his feet as the ends of Marley’s chains rattled by like metal pythons. Marley was already halfway across the yard, his feet sinking into the ground at each step. By the time Sam reached the churchyard gates, Marley was only visible from the chest up and he moved forward as though wading out to sea.
    ‘You mean to say you’re going to help that old miser?’ yelled Sam. ‘You’re here to save that sinner? Why does he get a second chance? Let him rot in hell if that’s what he’s good for. Let him get crushed under a mountain of chains. It ain’t fair!’
    But Marley’s ghost walked on without regard for the fairness of the situation and heedless of Sam’s outraged cries. Now there was just the top of Marley’s head, the scarf retied; now there was nothing.
    ‘ It – ain’t – fair! ’ yelled Sam.
    ‘What ain’t?’ said a voice behind him. Sam turned to see Lizzie rubbing her eyes and squinting at him suspiciously. ‘Who are you yelling at?’
    ‘Everyone,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Every-stinking-one.’

When Lizzie had asked Sam why they were leaving the relative comfort and security of the churchyard in the middle of the night, he said that the temperature was dropping and they needed to