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Christmas series: The phantom Tuesday Dec 12, 2017 at 12:01 AM Editor’s note: This serial, which explores the days leading up to that fateful night in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” continues through Christmas Day. The story thus far: Marley recounts to The Council, lords of the dark realm, how far Scrooge has fallen. Members of The Council listen to my story attentively, folding their thin fingers and staring with unblinking, pearl-colored eyes. “The torture of this world crushes me sevenfold greater knowing I set him on this path," I say. "I must tell him I was wrong. He mustn’t join me here.” Samuel sighs, and his seat of writhing purple descends to my level. I look into this elder ghost's pale face, wish again that I could discern details beyond so much electric white. “What you’ve been through breaks my heart, Jacob Marley,” he says. “But it is just one of a million tales that haunt this realm we inhabit. Regret is the nature of this place, surely you understand that.” His words are toxic. I feel my head hanging. “We cannot allow this," he finishes. "If you crossed this threshold to tell this man that his fate is written but for an altered life, it would set precedent that cannot be reversed. It would change everything.” He begins to rise, ascending back to the ranks with other council members. “So no, Jacob Marley, we will not open a portal for you to step through to the other side,” he says. The finality of my defeat is vicious, soaks up all hope like an unwelcome sponge. I think of Ebenezer, his dark garden of vine-like chains continuing to grow undetected. I planted them, had more than enough anger to nourish them and my own. I've done this. Me. I am damnation's personal cartographer, suffering's valet. "Please," I say. "We have spoken," Samuel says, rejoining the hovering circle. Anger finds me. It’s red-hot and unquenchable, all I have left. I feel my transparent form quake with fury. “You would forsake a man’s eternity for age-old traditions that mean nothing?” I seethe. “WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF, COWARDS?" Pain is my answer. Invisible claws made of lightning seem to grab my neck and squeeze while unseen fires ignite beneath their tips. The world goes white in a sudden flash and I’m driven to the floor, my knees cracking against the hard ground while the resistant squeals of my many chain links echo off the crypt walls. The chains pull tighter, tighter still. I scream. I’ve not felt physical pain these seven long years. I'm injected with fire and squeezed until I feel as though I’ll pop and dissolve. Samuel’s hand is extended toward me, fingers hooked and effecting. “You would do well to respect those who have heard your plea at all,” Samuel utters. His tone has changed, abandoning gentleness for a cold pitch that sounds like every nightmare. “What you propose is equal parts absurd and dangerous on levels unfounded. Ebenezer Scrooge may change at your warning. He may not. In the end, a changed nature is irresolute. Only pain is certain.” The squeeze tightens again, and my chains’ wails intensify. I rise from the tomb, the wintry eyes of the council on me as I ascend. My screams would bring brave men to their knees. “We have spoken.” The unholy squeeze of my chains ceases. I watch the white light slither back into cracks between stones and into dark corners. The tomb’s darkness returns, lit only by the pale purple of the Council’s vaporous thrones, whirring dully. “Leave this sacred place, Jacob Marley,” Samuel says, his voice returning to its former tranquil manner. “Oblige your fate and continue to roam the world without rest.” “Seems you'll have a companion soon enough,” grunts elder Thomas. I stagger to my feet and stumble from the tomb. The graveyard is as I left it, headstones and trees still iced by frost and brilliant moonlight. I scream into it. Again and again. Is it strange to wish for tear ducts, to crave the feel of moisture sliding down my face, to make a panicked, lonely moment such as this feel more real? I wail until there’s nothing left and hit the ground. I'm out of the tomb, back into this world made of custard. I sink. Lower and lower. I let it happen. Swallow me, dear earth. Let whatever imps lurk beneath your surface take hold and drag me into your depths. Let me dissolve. Purpose has come and gone. Something stops my slow descent. I feel fingers loop around my arm and pull. It’s a sensation I’d forgotten, feels like ice. I look upward to find the body this sudden arm — the one that can take hold of me instead of plunging right through — is connected to. A phantom stands tall and stock still, flowing robes spilling out around in a lurid circumference. The moonlight illuminates the arm that’s taken hold of me: a ghoulish thing, white and covered in webs of purple, throbbing veins. A dark hood hides its face. It releases its grip and I stumble backwards, coming to rest against a cracked headstone. It feels like staring at a statue, taking stock of this horrific wraith that’s just pulled me up. It stands at least eight feet tall, even-keeled with the leafless cemetery trees. “Th-thank you.” It feels appropriate. It’s also the first thing that leaps off my tongue into the nighttime frost. The phantom only bends forward in a nod, stays quite silent, and raises its hands. “Why did you…that is…” A breeze twists past, blowing fresh powder from the headstones, fences and trees in glittering bursts as moonlight catches each flake. I cannot feel the cold, but for a moment it feels as though I can. Lightning skitters across the south sky, brightening the already-lambent landscape. The intensity of the sudden outpouring of light does not fade as lightning should, only brightens in intensity. Features on the landscape blur, disappear altogether. A high-pitched hum sounds through it. The light surrounds me, enfolds the world in a bright embrace. The phantom stands at the center, wasted hands raised. And then, it’s done. The hum ceases. The brilliance snuffs like a once-lit candle. The phantom lowers its hands, stands in a room’s dark, dust-covered corner. I blink twice, three times to make sure the scene I see before me is real. No. This cannot be. I’ve slipped below the ground to a private hell. This is what I’m cursed to see for the rest of my days, this phantom a cruel, soundless Virgil. It is I, sitting in a chair, supported by the wood and single cushion. Chains adorn the arms and floor, throwing off a pale green glow that looks like effervescing steam. Ebenezer Scrooge’s parlor. His home. He sits across from me, his nightcap pulled snugly about his head. His feet tap in chilled succession, trying to stamp away the cold. A bowl of cold gruel lies nearby, spoon submerged almost to the handle’s edge. The image of me speaks, my voice booming in the room. “You don’t believe in me.” “I don’t.” Ebenezer snaps, drumming his thin fingers together nervously. “What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own senses?” “I don’t know.” “Why do you doubt your senses?” The same white light cuts the conversation off, swathes my vision a second time. Within moments the same room falls into place once again. My projection stands this time, Ebenezer crouched in a protective position by his chair, hands raised. “I am here tonight to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate,” my projection proclaims. “You were always a good friend to me, thank’ee.” The light flashes a final time, and in the resulting vision, this clone of mine stands near Ebenezer's window. He stares at me, blinks hard and fast as though he could make the nightmarish apparition before him disappear. “Look to me no more. Look that you may remember what has passed between us.” The window flies open and my body flies out it to the outside, my chains swirling about me in a glowing vortex. The phantom snaps its fingers, and in mere moments, we’re back in the graveyard where we met. Tomorrow: Marley follows the phantom in pursuit of his quest.