WARNING: References to multiple major character deaths, child death, and suicide. If this type of material is especially sensitive to anyone around this time of year, please either consider yourself warned or stop reading. I don't want to upset anyone by triggering a memory like that over the holidays (even if we all know how the original "Christmas Carol" ends).
Chapter Four: The Last of the Spirits
The ghost glided along the earth as if being carried by the wind. When it reached Flynn, the latter knelt before it, such was the power of its presence. The spirit was robed completely in black, in a robe that covered its head down to its feet, and only one hand stretched out from under the fabric. The figure had a majestic aura, but one of mystery and looming dread. Though it was not the acute, panicking fear he had felt with the apparition of Mother Gothel, nor the startle that came with the Ghost of Christmas Past, Flynn feared this visitor more than any he had yet had.
"Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Future?" he asked uneasily as he stood back up.
The spirit said nothing, but pointed with its one extended hand.
"You're going to take me to see events that haven't happened yet, but will happen," Flynn insisted. "Aren't you?"
The hood seemed to twitch for a second, as if underneath it, the spirit had nodded.
"Spirit," Flynn begged, desperate to hear speech from the phantom, "please show me what will happen to—to my child with Rapunzel. Please. I must know." His desperation was evident in his words, and inside he was hoping that this spirit, whose very domain was the future, would show him something that proved the prophecy of the Ghost of Christmas Present to be false.
But the spirit still did not reply. Its finger pointed resolutely ahead. This was too much for Flynn at last. He broke, collapsing before the figure in a series of tremors and trembles. "Ghost," he cried, "You frighten me! Or what you would show me frightens me. But I know you have a—a good purpose in coming here, and I want to be a better man, to be the man I think I started to become, for a brief moment last year, before being led astray again. I will see what you have to show me, and I will try to take heed of it! But won't you say something to me?"
The ghost still was silent, its finger continung to point off in the distance.
Flynn took a breath to calm his shuddering nerves, tried to swallow the fear he felt, and resigned himself to a silent companion. "Very well!" he said. "Very well. I hardly know anything about the capabilities of spirits when they are visible upon Earth. And it may be that you choose not to speak, because this time I'm an older pupil, able to figure out what the lesson is myself. Lead on, then!"
The spirit began to glide away in the same direction it had approached from. Flynn followed quickly after it. In a moment after he reached the folds of the spirit's cloak, the surroundings seemed to transform around them into a city—not the cheerful, pleasant island city of Corona where Flynn had just watched residents celebrating Christmas, but the inland city in the neighboring kingdom where Flynn currently lived and where Rapunzel had once resided with him.
The sky seemed to become lighter too, though not cheerful. It was a gray, overcast day, but there was no snow either on the ground or in the air. People were still milling about, however, wishing each other a merry Christmas and conducting last-minute business before the holiday. The neighborhood was familiar to Flynn; it was not far from where he lived. The ghost stopped before one particular office, a judge's office, and he and Flynn glided inside the building as if its walls were nothing. The spirit's hand pointed at three men who were talking over a desk, and Flynn approached them to listen to what they were saying.
"All I know is that it was a pretty disgusting business," said one lawyer to his partner, who sat beside him.
"How'd he do it?" asked the other lawyer.
"Hung himself from the railing at the top of the staircase in his place. Tied the noose and then jumped off the rail, I guess."
"Yesterday?"
"Yep."
"That's disgraceful," the second lawyer said indignantly. "If people are determined to do that, they should at least wait till after Christmas. How selfish."
"Yeah, well, he was apparently selfish from cradle to grave. If he did it on Christmas, there wouldn't have been anyone around to find the body—so of course he had to do it two days before, to be the biggest inconvenience he could."
"You think he did it that way on purpose?"
"I do. It's fitting that he would be that self-centered." The first lawyer leaned in conspiratorially. "You know what else? His body dangled over a whole parlor full of other boarders. Can you believe that?"
"Ugh, then you're right about him, if that's what he did. Good riddance," said the second lawyer, contempt oozing from his voice.
The judge, who had been conducting business with the lawyers, leaned in. "I heard that too—and more. Gentlemen, this is just between us, but rumor has it that there were heaps of money discovered afterward. A regular fortune."
"Who's going to get it?" asked the first lawyer.
"No idea," said the judge. "No will's come to light yet, and there ain't any next of kin—that we know of, anyway."
Flynn felt his skin crawl as he turned to the spirit. "Spirit," he began to say apprehensively, "what are they—no, never mind," he said hastily, as if he suddenly feared that the spirit at last would say something, and he really did not want to hear his unspoken question answered. "Lead on. Lead on. I understand. I should wish for better things to be said about me when I cross over, and behave so that people will say them. And to pass on naturally, unlike that selfish troubled soul they're talking about." He spoke with false courage emanating from his words, as if he were trying to unconsciously mask a fear he wouldn't even name.
The spirit led Flynn to another part of the city, where a pair of plump middle-aged women were standing by a bakery, arms full of cakes and cookies. They were sisters, as they had exclaimed after seeing each other unexpectedly in the chance meeting. One of them and her family were visiting the other for the holidays and had just arrived in town. The long finger of the spectre pointed at this pair. Flynn edged forward to listen to them.
"So, Margaret, what's the news from Corona?" asked one of the women.
The woman called Margaret leaned in, woe in her eyes. "They think the king won't be long for this world now," she said unhappily. "It's the flu, and it isn't even that bad this year, but it was as if the poor queen just lost the will to live when she had it, and now it's the same with him. I'm worried, Agnes—there's no one next in line to rule. The king was the last, and the late queen's family—well, you know her father was the Captain in his day, a knight mind you, but still... she wasn't a princess, so we can't be neatly annexed into any kingdom her family rules. It's going to be disputed, I'm afraid. The current Captain wants the rule, but so does the brother-in-law of the poor queen, and he's a rich merchant, so he's known around there."
"You think there's going to be conflict?"
"Probably," Margaret said glumly. "They both have a claim, you know."
"How old would the lost princess have been?"
"She would've been twenty this past May, but Agnes, she's not alive. She can't be. It's foolish to hope that she'll suddenly make an appearance."
Flynn remembered the visit to the castle of Corona with the Ghost of Christmas Present. The king and queen had been sad then, certainly, but from the sounds of it, the queen was deceased and the king was practically on his deathbed by this future Christmas Eve. The lost princess would have been twenty this year, whatever it was... Flynn quickly did the math in his head, based on his memories of what the princess's age should have been, and realized with shock that this was Christmas Eve of next year!
Flynn's quick mind ran over his memories, trying to figure out what they meant. This was the second time he had been shown something relating to the Corona royal family. The first time, he had been told—what was it? That he had another connection to the family than just the stolen and returned crown, but he had to figure it out himself. He had not done that by the time his previous visitor had departed, because he had seen celebrations of Christmas by the people of Corona and had later been completely distracted by Rapunzel's circumstances.
Rapunzel.
Her face flashed before his mind's eye, her short-cropped brown hair and big expressive green eyes. The face suddenly seemed to transform into the face of the queen, so fresh in his mind from the visit of the previous spirit. They looked so much alike that it was amazing he had never thought of it before the spirits came to him. He supposed that since they had not lived in Corona, owing to the fact that he was still wanted there for escape and unlawful flight, he wouldn't think so much about what their rulers looked like. Other things he had known about Rapunzel, the strange history of her hair—he had almost forgotten that she used to be blonde, since she hadn't been after the third day he had known her—all of a sudden fell into place. Then something else seemed to rush forward in his mind, the fact that the ghost of Mother Gothel had introduced herself not as her mother, but as the woman who raised Rapunzel. She had said that would be explained in time, too. It all made sense now. Rapunzel was the Corona family's lost daughter.
"Spirit," he gasped, hardly in control of himself. His first question, the desperate need he'd had when he first saw this phantom of the Future, suddenly was at the forefront of his mind once more. "Spirit, please show me what has happened to Rapunzel!"
The spirit pointed in a different direction and left the bakery. The scenery of the familiar town vanished, to be replaced with a wooded spot that Flynn recognized as being probably close to the Snuggly Duckling. Urgently, impatiently, Flynn followed after his ghostly companion.
Flynn had walked through these woods before. He knew them reasonably well, and he knew that there were few buildings in Corona territory that were not part of the island town. The Snuggly Duckling was one. There were woodsmen's huts here and there as well, and one or two fishermen's cottages near the shore, but the other building of significance was the tiny, one-room chapel in the middle of a clearing in the forest. Flynn realized with apprehension that they were heading in the direction of this church rather than the tavern.
And then, as if time itself had been compressed, the sky was dark again, and there they were, standing between the little church and the cemetery adjoining it. There were no voices inside the building, and its windows were dark, but there were some sounds coming from the graveyard. They were coarse, rough, and masculine, but they were all tinged with sorrow. Flynn inclined his head almost involuntarily in the direction of the voices.
Even in the night, he could tell at once to whom they belonged. The entire group of pub thugs was in the graveyard, all clad in whatever black items they could scrounge up. They were all hovered by a single gravestone. Dread was seeping over his body, as he had a terrible fear that he knew whose grave it was, but something, not only the finger of the spectre beside him, compelled him to draw closer and listen to what the ruffians were saying.
"We all miss you," mumbled Big Nose toward the grave. Flynn noticed that the thug had a woman beside him, a dark-haired girl who seemed to have similar tastes to his own, but it was too dark to read the name on the marker. "If you can hear me—us—if you're lookin' on, seeing how your old pals are doing this Christmas, then know that we sure do miss you and wish you were celebrating with us."
"And Kate too," muttered Vladamir. "I'm so sorry."
This seemed to mark the end of the respects that the thugs were paying to the deceased person—people?—since they got to their feet and began to speak to each other. "I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for it," Vladamir said to the group at large, and he did sound sorrowful. "If somebody'd just been there, just been there to get to them and get a doctor to help, they might both have been saved." His words ended in a choking sob.
One of the Flynn's gaze darted to the tombstone. By sheer chance—or was it fate?—it caught the light of the moon, enabling him to read the inscription. A sick feeling washed over him as he confirmed what he had feared as soon as the Ghost of Christmas Future led him to this spot:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
RAPUNZEL
A DEAR FRIEND
WHO TAUGHT US TO DREAM
MAY 1 1683 – JANUARY 28 1703
AND HER DAUGHTER KATHERINE
JANUARY 26 1703 – JANUARY 27 1703
Flynn felt that his entire world was falling away from him. He had known that his child, their child, would die in this bleak future. The knowledge cut through his heart, but he had known that the moment that the Ghost of Christmas Present spoke of it. But Rapunzel—he hadn't even considered that she might die too. Die of complications of childbirth—from having to deliver the baby unattended, alone, and in squalor, based on what Vladamir had just said—compounded with grief at the loss of her child. In this horrible future, he would lose them both, he thought miserably. In fact, he would lose them barely a month from the present time. He realized that the tombstone also didn't contain a surname for either one of them. That meant that in the future, not only had he not reconciled with her, but he had not even returned to claim his own child. They would be buried without a name, the child without a father.
"What have I done?" he cried to the spirit beside him. "What have I done to her? Spirit, I didn't mean for this to happen, any of this." He took several deep breaths, trying to rein in his grief, trying to fix upon any sliver of hope. The first conversation he had heard, about the suicide victim, was back in his mind, for reasons he could not explain, but he pushed it aside. "Spirit," he demanded, his voice shaking, "I sense that our time together is nearly at an end... but please answer me this. Are the visions, the scenes you've shown me, visions of things that will be, or things that only may be?"
The spirit still pointed inflexibly at the ruffians. Flynn's attention returned to them, though he could not imagine he would hear anything but further reason to despair.
"Vladamir, you ain't got anything you need to be forgiven for," said Hookhand gruffly, as though he too had just had to wipe away heavy tears and get command of his words. "You didn't do wrong against her. And the person who did is dead now."
Several of the thugs glanced up. "How?" Attila said harshly. "Somebody shoot him? He didn't deserve to get off that easy."
"No, hung himself," Hookhand said, derision pouring from his words. "Coward to the last." He glanced back at the grave. "I guess it means at least he'll never destroy any other sweet girl. Come on... we'd better go."
As the ruffians quickly shuffled off, Flynn fell to his knees. "Was I that person?" he cried to the phantom. "Was I the man who committed suicide? Because of regret for—for this? But too late," he gasped out. "Too late." He put his hands over his face. "Spirit, that's not who I am anymore! This future you've shown me must be changeable—why show it to me if it isn't?
"I was selfish and unfeeling... thinking more about money and convenience to myself, like I'd done my whole life, even when the time had come to think of her. I was cruel and impatient with her when I should have encouraged and comforted her, I know it." He broke out in a sob before the spirit as the memories of slighting and ignoring her, now painfully poignant, flitted across his mind.
Gathering himself together as best he could, he continued, though the spirit remained immovable. "And I turned my back on the world in general, looking at others as prey and myself as a predator... She began to change me, but I resisted because I was afraid of weakness. I returned to greed." He clutched desperately at the robe of the spirit, but still it stood without moving.
"But now I know what weakness and strength really are. That's not who I am now, and it's not who I will be! I'll go back to her, Spirit—I'll take her back. I'll love her and take care of her. I do love her. I'll take her back to her family. I'll serve her kingdom. Please, Spirit—please tell me this doesn't have to be this way!"
For the first time, the hand of the spirit shook.
"Spirit, please! Tell me I can still change this!" He grabbed at the spirit's hand. It tried to pull away, but Flynn would not let go. In the ensuing struggle, Flynn observed through his agony that the spirit seemed to shrink. The dark surroundings began to fade away, changing over to a familiar setting.
