AN: This chapter is a selection/summary of A Carol for De Soto's ch 2-4 but I would recommend reading that story. Since it is over 10,000 words, though, and this is less than half of that, you can get a rather good idea of everything in it by reading this chapter instead.
ZZZ
That night De Soto went to bed and as soon as his eyes closed, sleep enveloped him. He dreamt of watching, sitting right next to the King of Spain, as the soldiers were parading a chained Zorro through the streets of Madrid, on his way to the gallows. The gathered crowd, acclaimed him as a hero and was throwing tomatoes and lettuce at his nemesis. It was a very nice dream for De Soto, whose face was beaming, expecting the mask to be removed at any second and to finally look his defeated archenemy in the face. He would have enjoyed his dream a little longer, had a voice not called out to him from the shadows:
"Buona notte, Alcalde!" The voice said and, at waking up instantly, De Soto felt a shiver going through him.
"Who said that! Is that you, Zorro? Of course it must be you, who else? But you won't get away with it this time!" De Sotto threatened, pulling out a sword from under his bed.
A thick fog, seeming to come from a wall, suddenly filled half of the room. Soon enough, a ghostly figure started to drag heavy chains through the wall and into his bedroom. Ignacio de Soto watched in terror how his idol, Niccolo Machiavelli himself, stepped right in front of his bed. His face was white and his hands were hanging so low that they gave the impression that the heavy chains had broken them, and they were now just one more part of the burden the poor apparition had to carry with him.
"You...You are not Zorro!" The Alcalde stated in disbelief. "Who...Who...Who are you? What are you doing here and where have you come from?"
"Don't you recognize me, Alcalde? Is my picture on your wall not a good resemblance to the man I once was?" The ghost wondered.
"Maa..Maaa...Machiavelli? You are Niccolo Machiavelli?" Asked the Alcalde more and more convinced it was but another dream.
"I am, Signore!" Came the answer.
"I have always wished I could have met you!" De Soto confessed. "But you died hundreds of years ago! What are you doing in my bedroom?"
"I am here to warn you, Alcalde!" Machiavelli answered.
"Warn me? Warn me about what? I swear I have taken your lessons to heart! I am guiding my life based on them!" Ignacio replied.
"No, Alcalde! My lessons...I...I was wrong!" The ghost confessed. "I am now condemned for the rest of Eternity. But there is hope for you yet, De Soto! This year, you have done something right… for the wrong reasons, but it was still right, and you earned yourself a second chance. Because of your actions, I am here."
"Wh… What do you mean?"
"Tonight you will be visited by three Christmas Ghosts. Listen to them, accept their lessons, and you can still be saved!" The ghost told him. "Remember! One more chance!"
As he said that, the ghost and all the fog suddenly vanished as if it was never there and De Soto wondered for a few minutes if it had all been a strange dream. Suddenly, the fog returned, this time enveloping the entire room.
"Deeeee Sotttttooooo!" He heard a feminine voice calling in a strange tone, making his hair stand up. "Ignaaaaacio De Sotttttooooooo!" The voice repeated.
"Who said that?" He demanded to know.
"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past!" He heard, as the ghost of his sister, Francisca, materialized before him. "Did I scare you, you Big Goof?" She wondered with a smile.
"Fr...Fra...Francisca? How are you here? How is this possible?" Was his reaction at seeing her.
"I am a ghost, dear Brother. I am always here. That's what ghosts do! Look after the living." She answered.
"You are? How… How come this is the first time I've seen you, then?" He asked her.
"Well, Nacio, let's say it's a special night when you get to reevaluate and compare your choices, so that you might make better ones in the future. A night of answers to the questions you have, and those you have not yet considered." She told him. "But you will understand everything later, and since I don't have all night, I believe we should get going."
As soon as she said that, Ignacio saw a door before them, and as it opened, they found themselves in their old house.
It was Christmas Eve, almost three decades earlier and his sister, six at the time, was helping their mother, Dona Maria, bake cookies. The house was small and cramped, but the cheerful spirit of the mistress of the house and her little senorita, as well as the smell of the fresh cookies made everything seem charming and warm. Ignacio's younger self was messing with the presents under the tree, intent on finding out what his sister was getting and decide whether to leave it or steal it for himself.
"I remember this Christmas." Grown-up Ignacio said. "I was but 10 at the time. How is this possible?"
"Ghosts can see all through time and space, Nacio. I am only here to take you to the past, but the other ghosts, which will come after me, will also show you the present and the future." Francisca replied and took a finger to her mouth, indicating for him to keep quiet.
They watched as mother and daughter prepared cookies for each of the family's members, while Ignacio's younger self was checking the presents set on stealing his sister's should they prove interesting. After his father came home from work, the entire family, including the grandparents on his father's side sat down to eat. Only Young Ignacio was constantly complaining and unwilling to enjoy the holiday.
"Mother has always been afraid that you would grow up a bitter man, filled with resentment. And look at you, Brother" Francisca told him as she was pointing at the boy at the table "always grumpy and never able to appreciate what you had. Just like now. I guess she was right about you."
"What are you talking about? I am not bitter! I have a successful career, I am Alcalde, I have people at my orders." He protested.
"Yet here you are: Christmas Eve and all alone! Not to mention, strangely obsessed with a man that is just trying to save others and prevent you for doing something you might regret for all of Eternity."
"You mean Zorro? Don't tell me that even ghosts buy into that act of his! He is nothing more than a mere criminal."
"Do criminals usually save people, Nacio?" She asked him. "Maybe it's lucky that you are too blind to see what's right in front of you!" She uttered, barely audible. "Come! We need to go on, and my time is running out!" She asked, and a new door opened, which led them to a large room filled with children and only a couple of adults.
Ignacio had some trouble recognizing the young boy they were looking at, but eventually, he recognized the twelve-year-old Jaime Mendoza, standing alone in a corner of the room and playing with a wooden soldier, all by himself.
"Why is he not joining the others?" De Soto asked as he looked at the happy faces of the children playing around the tree with a padre and a beautiful black-haired woman.
"The other children don't like him very much, and a few of them forbade him from playing with them while the De la Vegas visited. I suspect they didn't want him to get any presents." As she said that, Ignacio noticed the much younger Don Alejandro coming in through the door, clumsily disguised as Santa Claus, with a fake white beard, a white-hair wig, dressed all in red, and a sack filled with gifts on his shoulders.
The children suddenly hurried towards him, waiting to receive their presents, but the fake Santa refused to hand them any before they each recited a poem or performed for him, the laughter and joy growing with each and every act.
Jaime had lifted his eyes as the disguised don entered and stood looking from where he was, but did not dare go to collect a present. Then, he returned to his game, just as a small, well-dressed boy came to him. He lifted his eyes again when he noticed his expensive black-leather boots and stared into the blue eyes of six-year-old Diego de la Vega, who handed him a plate filled with cookies, decided to keep him company. After a short conversation, he also left Jaime, only to return with the biggest present his parents had prepared for the orphan children, handing the package to the boy sitting on the floor.
"I am Diego." He said as he sat back down next to him. "I'd like to be your friend, if you don't mind that I am younger than you."
"No… I don't mind… I am Jaime!" Came the reply, as two wondering eyes looked at Diego, then rested on the present as the hands attached to the same body rapidly opened it to find a pair of new boots which fit him perfectly. "This is the second Christmas present I have ever received!" He confessed.
"They seem to have been made especially for you, Sergeant!" Diego declared, smiling at him as the older boy eyed him again inquisitively.
"Sergeant?" Jaime asked.
"He is a Sergeant, is he not?" The younger boy asked, referring to the wooden toy. "And he looks just like you!" He remarked, seriously.
Jaime agreed and grinned again "Sergeant Jaime Mendoza." He considered, then sat back down to eat his pudding.
"Sometimes, just one kind gesture can change a whole lot for a man." Francisca remarked as her brother frowned.
"Yes… Well… Perhaps he should have encouraged Mendoza to be a General, and then he wouldn't be a useless moron, stuck in the middle of nowhere with no prospects for a promotion before him." He answered.
His sister sighed and seemed resigned as she said "We need to go!" then ushered Ignacio out.
As they stepped through the door, they exited in Cadiz, in front of the same house in which he had spent most of his childhood. There, they witnessed his grandfather leaving his family to go quarrel with a neighbor on Christmas Eve.
"I was so mad with you that Christmas!" The ghost uttered to the older Ignacio.
"Just because I'd written that I wasn't coming home?" He asked, looking at his letter burn. "Hardly a good reason! It's Grandfather you should have been upset with!"
"You don't remember, do you?" She inquired.
"Remember what?"
"That was the Christmas Grandfather died." She answered, amazed at his capacity to forget such an important event. "It might have been different had he not decided to leave, but he was so blinded by his hatred for that neighbor of ours, Senor Lamas, that he didn't care that it was Christmas. All he cared about was fighting with him because his goats destroyed a few square feet of Grandfather's garden. The man even paid Father for the damage and apologized several times. We could have spent Christmas together, all of us, and everything would have been different. Perhaps he would have listened to you. Instead, you decided not to come home from University, and Grandfather chose the worst moment to be stubborn. When Father returned home that evening he found him dead, near the road."
"He was mugged and killed… that was by no means my fault! He should have stayed home! You, Mother and Grandmother shouldn't have let him leave." Ignacio defended himself.
"We both know that was not in our power. Whose temper do you think you inherited? He was just as determined as you are when he made a decision, and it led him to his death. And no one ever blamed you, Ignacio. I was upset because you weren't there when we needed you! But that doesn't matter, really. What matters is that you don't repeat his mistake! That's all you need to take from this: don't let stubbornness overpower you because it may just lead to your demise in ways you couldn't possibly anticipate!"
As she counseled him another door opened and the next thing he knew, they were on one of the busy streets of Madrid, standing in front of a tavern where Ignacio saw himself drinking and joking with some of his friends, having a wonderful time.
"You, again, remained in Madrid, Grandfather was dead, and Father was becoming a shadow of himself… it was still at the beginning of his illness but, trust me, it was not particularly fun to watch as his muscles were giving up on him, and his words were making less and less sense. You were never there when we needed you, Ignacio!" She reproached him.
When the door opened again, it took De Soto few moments to realize they were back in Los Angeles since the pueblo only consisted of half the buildings currently erected around its plaza. His sister pointed him in the direction of the establishment he knew belonged to Victoria Escalante. Through one of the windows he noticed that the place was mostly empty, lightened by just a few candles, and only two people were inside, caught into an embrace. One was obviously a teenager girl and the other a tall man.
"How could they do this to me?" He heard the taverness questioning. "How could they just leave me all alone? What will become of me now?"
"Why is she crying on his shoulder?" De Soto asked mockingly, looking at Diego de la Vega embracing the fourteen-year-old Victoria Escalante.
"Her mother was executed six weeks earlier for having helped an injured man who turned out to be a rebel, her father left her and her brothers to get his revenge on the men who had killed his wife, and her brothers decided to follow him that very morning, so she was left all alone, on Christmas Eve, at the age of fourteen." Francisca answered. "In the span of two months, she lost every member of her family and found herself alone in the world."
Diego encouraged the young girl and promised to always be there for her, even if that meant he would no longer leave for Spain. Victoria wouldn't hear about it, though. Soon after, he came up with the idea of moving the evening's celebration from its traditional place at the hacienda to the tavern, a tradition the taverness would continue for years to come.
"And what am I supposed to get from this?" Ignacio asked his sister. "That Diego is always up for a Christmas party?"
"No… What you need to know… you have to deduce yourself this time, Nacio." She answered and showed him to the next door which opened just in front of the University of Madrid.
Climbing the stairs, De Soto followed Francisca to the big hall, where lots of young people in elegant attires were dancing and cheerfully talking, glasses of wine in their hands. Ignacio started recognizing some and soon got depressed at realizing it was the same event to which he had once taken the woman he wanted to marry, Rafaela Soler de Vives.
He then had to witness the mentioned senorita take advantage of his younger self's decision to get a drink for her to direct herself towards Diego de la Vega, who was engaged, at the time, in a discussion with his friend Emmanuel Dos Santos.
At that point, Francisca took Ignacio's hand and made him follow her towards Diego.
"I don't care about what they're discussing, Francisca! Why do you want to go there? I know he tried to court her, and I know how it turned out, since they are not married!"
"Perhaps you should find out, anyway..." She suggested.
Rafaela reached the two caballeros, carefully making sure that younger Ignacio wouldn't see her, and bluntly asked Diego for a dance. The caballero refused, eventually informing her that he was a bit sore from my fencing class, and would make a very bad dancing partner, a reaction that caused the woman to leave angry with him, his friend to question his decision, pointing out that the woman he was in love with back in Los Angeles might not be waiting for him as he was waiting to be reunited with her, and Ignacio to confess that he had underestimated Diego's honor and to laugh at the excuse the caballero had made up in order to refuse Rafaela's advances.
"I believe this is where we part, Ignacio." She said as they returned to his room in the garrison. "Remember! There are lessons you need to learn and all your questions are being answered. But the only way to understand them is for you to be ready to change, Brother. Until you are, the meaning of what you see will remain hidden to you." As she said that, De Soto stared at her skeptically. "Two more ghosts will visit you, Nacio. Be ready for them!"
"One more thing, Francisca!" He stopped her before she was gone "Machiavelli told me that there was one good thing I did… the reason for your presence here, tonight. Can you tell me what it was?" He asked.
"You saved Diego, of course! That was the right choice, Nacio! For you, that will always be the right choice." She answered.
As she said that, she vanished through the thick fog, leaving him to wonder about what he had witnessed, and why was De la Vega so important.
ZZZ
Minutes after Francisca left, another ghost appeared. This time, it was the ghost of his childhood friend, Nicolas Huerta. Nicolas had died when he was but twelve, and Ignacio decided right then and there never to get truly attached to another person again, a decision cemented when his own sister died, nine years later and Rafaela, whom he did fall in love with, turned out to be smitten with Diego.
Nicolas entered the room all cheerful and went straight for the baffled Ignacio and, taking his hand, guided him towards the tavern's kitchen. It was that evening's fiesta, and they passed by the cheerful Los Angelinos on their way. Once in Victoria's personal sanctuary they witnessed her preparing a food basket for Mendoza and giving it to Zorro, as well as their conversation and the masked man's promise to one day reveal himself to her.
Next, they followed the black-clad man to the prison cells where he handed the food basket to the Sergeant.
"So he knew exactly who that food was from and he lied to my face!" Ignacio uttered. "He never even tried to arrest that outlaw!"
"Why would anyone want to harm someone who only helps, Nacio?"
"Helps! Don't be ridiculous! The man is just trying to... to bribe the Sergeant using his weakness for food! All he wants is to get rid of us!" De Soto replied upset.
"He could kill him! He could kill all of you if he wanted, and no one would ever know he did it. He is already an outlaw with a price on his head, so a few more crimes would make no difference, would they? If he wanted to get rid of you, murder would be the fastest solution, is that not so?"
"I suppose you also believe he doesn't kill us because he is so noble and good!" Ignacio protested. "Don't make me laugh! He is nothing but a coward!"
"Murder is a coward's solution!" Nicos replied, quoting words De Soto found familiar.
"Where did I hear that?" He asked.
"Zorro, maybe?" The boy answered.
"Well… that is something he might say, I guess… Although, I'm not sure it was him…" De Soto replied pensively.
Moments later the scenery changed, and they suddenly found themselves on a field, right next to a canyon. At its bottom lay the corpse of Jaime Mendoza.
"Wh…What happened to him?" De Soto asked.
"Nothing yet. But, tonight, he only had a little of the food Zorro gave him, and tomorrow you already asked him to leave on patrol at dawn, meaning he will not have the chance to eat anything. That, the tiredness from tonight's guard duty, the slippery terrain, and a disease he doesn't know he has but which weakens him when he forgets to eat, will end up making the Sergeant more than a little dizzy, enough to fall off his horse and to his death. It is a shame, though. He was always there for you, Nacio!
"A few months ago he risked his own life for you because he was asked to do something he knew to be wrong. And what did you do in return? You almost left him to die an agonizing death just to save your own skin! It is funny, however: the same wrong choice you made to save yourself, eventually led to you receiving this second chance."
"Yes… De la Vega… What is so special about Diego, anyway? He wastes his life reading books and doing nothing even remotely useful."
"I do believe you might be seriously misjudging him, amigo! He also learns a lot and has a very creative mind. But, since we are on that subject, have you ever thought that you are wasting your life pursuing a man you know you'll never catch? One who you might not even want dead, after all, despite what you believe?"
"Don't be absurd, Nicos! Of course, I want Zorro dead! But I...I don't want the Sergeant to die. I did not know this would happen just because I didn't let him have his dinner!" Ignacio apologized, returning to the scene ahead.
"What you see can be avoided, Nacio! All that hasn't happen yet might still be changed. It's only up to you to do so." The ghost boy assured him as the scene changed once more and they found themselves in the De la Vega hacienda.
By the light outside it was about noon the following day and everyone present there was laughing, happily discussing the year which was just about to end and looking confidently towards the future. The way they behaved reminded Ignacio of the best Christmases he had spent with his family and made him realized that he had, indeed, never really treasured those times as he should have.
Another change of scenery brought him back to Cadiz, where he saw his mother and grandmother sit alone at the Christmas table, both remembering the good times they had when their entire family celebrated together. They mentioned his father and grandfather, Ignacio and his sister, and he saw that the two women shed tears at their memories. He also noticed that his grandmother seemed ill and realized that was probably his last chance to see her alive, so he was, for a brief moment, grateful for the entire strange affair.
Listening to them, though, he also realized how much he, too, missed those days which were never to return, and wished, for the first time in a long while, for the opportunity to spend Christmas with his family again, vowing that if he was ever given a second chance at that, he would not waste it.
"It is time for me to go, Amigo!" Nicolas brought his thoughts back to the present. "I am sorry my death made you close your heart to others. Perhaps, if you found it in you to open it again, you might eventually get back everything you lost and much more."
"And how exactly can I get back my friend, my father, my sibling? How can I get back the woman I loved when she is lost forever?"
"Perhaps there is another friend, another father, another sibling and another woman somewhere. People who might make a better man out of you, Nacio. Have you considered that? Life is full of surprises! All you need to do is be careful with your choices and the reasons behind them!"
With that, the little ghostly boy was gone and De Soto was, yet, again, alone in his bedroom.
ZZZ
The Ghost of Christmas Future was a tall figure, dressed in a black robe, face hidden in the shadow of a hood. The apparition was floating instead of walking, like the other two ghosts had done. Ignacio looked at it and felt a cold shiver down his spine. He soon learned that he was right to fear it, or, better yet, to fear what the ghost was about to show him.
They made no move but their surroundings changed and seconds later they were standing on a familiar street of Cadiz, right in front of his old house.
There was only one light in his old house and they entered to find his mother all alone, crying and reading old letters she had kept and on which Ignacio recognized his writing as well as his sister's.
The ghost indicated for him to look at the papers on the bed and he saw that one was a receipt for 20 pesos paid for a tombstone. "My grandmother?" he asked, and the ghost nodded. "So all she has left is me, and I am in Los Angeles because of that… that arch being! Oh… I need to think of a way to capture him… and fast. I will not allow for this to happen!"
Just as he said that, the scenery changed again and they were back in Los Angeles. It was also Christmas Eve but there was no decoration anywhere and the few people on the streets seemed to be in a grim mood. Making their way towards the tavern, they found it almost empty, nothing inside indicating that it was a holiday as in the previous years.
The only three customers were talking in a low tone of voice at one of the tables as Victoria exited the kitchen to bring them some food. De Soto noticed she was even thinner than he knew her to be and, by her reaction when one of the three men tried to have her sit in his lap, a mere shadow of the woman he knew. When she refused, her customer slapped her, then forced a kiss on her. She suffered through it without posing too much resistance, then escaped through the kitchen as fast as she could.
Suddenly, the scenery changed again and they were both in a graveyard. The ghost pointed towards a grave and De Soto again saw Victoria Escalante. The woman was talking to a grave, sobbing as she was asking how was she expected to go on with her life.
"Is that Zorro's grave?" De Soto asked with a smile. "Do I finally catch him?"
The ghost said nothing.
"Why did you have to sacrifice yourself for that monster? Didn't you know how important you were? To all of us?" Victoria asked the name on the grave. "Damn De Soto and his plans! He should have been the one to die that day instead of you!"
Getting closer, De Soto saw the name Diego de la Vega on the tomb. "De la Vega? He sacrificed himself to save me? Why?" De Soto still asked, despite no longer even expecting an answer from the ghost.
"And now your father is also dead… Felipe left Los Angeles… Your lands and the hacienda lay abandoned… This pueblo… Everything is wrong, Diego! And I am alone! I have no one! You promised I would always have you and Don Alejandro, but the two of you also left me!" The taverness continued her monologue with the tombstone.
"He was a good man! He knew what De Soto was doing, and he still saved him!" Padre Benitez neared her and tried to console the young woman. "God forgive me, but the Alcalde did not deserve to be saved! Certainly not at the expense of Don Diego's life." He muttered.
"No… He didn't!" She agreed with the man as her sobbing engulfed her entire being.
"You'd say she's crying for her lover, not for the man she claims to be her best friend!" De Soto remarked cynically.
"And it was so useless! He died to save that evil man…" Victoria continued as soon as she collected herself enough. "but he died just a few weeks later, anyway! So his sacrifice was in vain because De Soto was never able to learn from his mistakes! He never cared for anything but his own glory and that led to his downfall. And, with him, two other lancers perished. And many good men and women also ended up dead… people who could have been saved if Diego had been the one to survive! He would have known what to do to help!" She answered. "All because of Ignacio De Soto's obsession with the one man who risked everything for us!"
The ghost indicated for him to look closely in order to see the date on the grave, then led him to what looked like almost 40 new graves.
"That is my name on that grave! It's true then? I also die? Less than a month after Diego? And all those people? The dates are different but ... Why? What does Diego's death have to do with anything?" He asked, but, again, received no answer. Looking carefully at the graves, an idea started circulating through his mind. "I see. I see, now!" He whispered, just for himself. "Diego!"
The ghost just turned towards him, and they suddenly found themselves back in the Alcalde's bedroom. A moment later, the ghost was gone, and it was morning.