Neezer Skroob Chapter 5 - Those Who Gave the Gift

Part 5: Those Who Gave the Gift

Carol of Vengeance

Three spirits came with gift of cheer,

But gifts can rot from year to year.

They cracked him open, poured him out,

And left him hollow, filled with doubt.

The black book became his bread. He ate from its pages more hungrily than he ever ate crusts from the street. The words filled him with a terrible nourishment, lean, bitter, but sustaining. Days passed in a fever, nights in muttered recitations. He grew gaunt, hollow-eyed, but his step steadied, his voice gained a new sharpness, his gaze carried fire where once it had only borne defeat.

The whispers from the Black Book grew sharper as the nights deepened. At first, Scrooge thought them the mutterings of his own mind, a hunger-fed fever, the delirium of a man freezing in rags. But the voices were too precise, too cruelly attuned to his past.

"Was it not the Spirits who unmade you?" they hissed. "Was it not the phantoms who stripped you of your armor of gold, who turned your hand from ledger to alms-box, who made you a lamb among wolves?"

At first, his hatred clung to Bob Cratchit. He dreamed of strangling him in his bed, of burning the ledgers, of dragging him down into the gutter where he belonged. He muttered Bob's name over the book, hoping it would spark. But the pages remained still, indifferent. Bob was flesh and blood. The book was meant for greater foes.

And then, one night as he traced the broken circle in soot, a memory returned with the force of a blow: the Spirits.

He saw again the Ghost of Christmas Past, that flickering child with an old man's gaze, tugging at the seams of his memory, forcing him to weep at shadows. "A liar," Scrooge whispered now. "A trick of memory that weakened me."

He saw the Ghost of Christmas Present, laughing, robed in green, mocking him with the Cratchits' meager feast, dangling Tim like a fragile ornament before his conscience. "A glutton's jest," Scrooge muttered. "And all his plenty turned to dust."

He saw the great, silent Future, pointing at the grave until his resolve cracked. That vision had frightened him into mercy, into kindness. Yet here he stood, worse than dead: forgotten while still breathing. "A liar most of all," Scrooge spat. "For I have not died. I have been erased."

They had remade him. They had softened him. They had left him unguarded in a world sharp with teeth.

His hand shook as he drew the sigil. "It was you," he whispered.

The book's pages rustled, though no wind stirred. His own hand began to write, ink blooming from nowhere, forming words he did not will:

Do not curse the thief who takes the purse. Curse the hand that opened it.

Scrooge's breath came quick. Yes. Bob had stolen, but only because the Spirits had turned him into an easy mark. They had taken away the armor of miserliness, leaving him naked in a storm. His revenge had been misplaced. Bob was symptom, not cause.

But the Book was not finished. Its pages fluttered in the candle's breath though no wind stirred. Symbols bled into shapes, and in those shapes Scrooge saw faces he knew all too well.

Fred, his smiling nephew, turning him from the hearth. The gentlemen of charity, closing their doors. Mrs. Cratchit, sharp-tongued, dismissing the memory of her dead son. The Cratchit children, once barefoot, now clothed in his coin, sneering from their windows. The merchants of Cornhill who crossed the street to avoid his eye. The drunkards of Cheapside, crowing him "ghost." Even beggars spitting at his boots, as though he were beneath the destitute themselves.

Each face shone for a moment in the gloom. Each voice rose in cruel chorus. They mocked him, they neglected him, they took advantage of him, they laughed at his ruin.

The Black Book whispered: "Do you see? They were always wolves, and you the sheep. They drank the milk of your mercy and spat it back as poison."

Scrooge's body shook with rage. The candlelight blurred as tears welled in his eyes, though they were not of sorrow but of fury. His hand clenched until his nails drew blood.

He tore a scrap of coal paper, scrawled the names in chalk on the wall of his lodging:

PAST. PRESENT. FUTURE.

Each letter burned into him like a brand.

The book taught him new rites. Not of coins, nor curses for flesh, but for shadows. Incantations to bind what was incorporeal, to twist what thought itself eternal. The rituals were costly: each demanded something of him.

Burn your mercy, the page commanded. Shed your name. Trade your soul for smoke and flame.

He hesitated. Mercy was all that had separated him from the man he once was. But what had mercy bought him? Chains. Hunger. Mockery.

From his pocket, he drew the first ledger of his charitable giving: the little book he had kept with pride in the early years, each coin noted, each gift tallied. He stared at the entries: five pounds to the Widows' Fund, two to the Orphans' Relief, coal for the poorhouse. He remembered the tears, the gratitude, the warmth it had brought.

And he remembered how quickly it soured. How the same mouths that had blessed him now spat his name. How the same hands that had shaken his with reverence now pointed him out as unwell.

He fed the ledger to the fire. The pages curled, the ink blackened, the numbers screamed in silence as they were erased. The air in the room shifted, heavy, pressing against his chest. The candle flames bent inward, as if bowing.

Scrooge felt something leave him. A thread snapped. The warmth that had once risen in his chest when he gave alms: gone. In its place, a cold clarity, sharper than ice.

He began to dream of them again, the Spirits. But not as before.

The Ghost of Christmas Past appeared at the edge of his sleep, flickering like an old flame. "We showed you your truth," it whispered. "We freed you."

"No," Scrooge growled, thrashing on his straw pallet. "You weakened me. You made me prey."

The Spirit recoiled. Its light dimmed.

The Ghost of Christmas Present loomed next, robes tattered, torch sputtering. "The world was better for your change. Did you not see their joy?"

"I saw them grow fat on my ruin!" Scrooge roared. His voice shook the dream. The torch guttered out.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come did not speak. It never had. But when it raised its black finger to point, Scrooge seized it. He clutched the shadowed hand in both of his, muttering the words from the book. The finger trembled. For the first time, the great silent Spirit seemed unsure.

Scrooge woke drenched in sweat, his hands still clenched, his lips still moving. The words of the book lingered on his tongue like ash.

And in the hollow of his chest, where hope had once kindled, Scrooge felt something colder and sharper ignite. Hatred. A hatred that would not stop at Bob Cratchit, nor at Fred, nor even at the Spirits. A hatred vast enough to unmake the world that had mocked him.

Christmas neared once more. The city sang carols. The bells rang. But in the alleys, Ebenezer Scrooge, forgotten, hunched over a book that had erased his tears and sharpened his hatred.

He no longer thought of bread, or warmth, or the cold stares of London. He thought only of the Spirits. He thought of the night they had come, of the mercy they had forced upon him, of the ruin that followed.

The candle guttered low. The shadows pressed close. And in their glow, Ebenezer Scrooge whispered a vow:

"I will not be the one haunted. Not again. This time, I shall haunt you."