The fog lifted and cleared easily on a solitary schoolyard that was blanketed with snow. There was a wood fence leading to it. It was not a fine school by any means. It was purely brick that was somewhat crumbling, yet the steeple stood tall with a golden bell. I did not hear snow crunch beneath my feet when I stepped forth nor did I see my breath, I was purely in this scene in spirit.
The door to the school cracked open slightly and I squinted half expecting one of my younger brothers or sister to coming running out and run towards me, for this was the school that Mr. Scrooge had insisted they attend, but instead a young boy stepped out hesitantly with a letter in hand. He looked from side to side as if to examine his surroundings. He could have been no more than twelve years old with raven black hair and blue-grey eyes, a tiny mouth and a very skinny figure that led one to believe that he was underfed and somewhat sickly. It was then that I felt the presence of Fan behind me.
"Do you know this boy?" she asks in her gentle voice as we watched the boy's little chest heave as he gripped the railing to descend the steps. I had an idea who the boy was, but I could not be sure… Two other boys came onto the scene hiding behind some bushes with a glint of malevolence in their eyes that left me with a horrible feeling of foreboding. "Oh no." I said aloud just as the small boy from the schoolhouse begun to run for the road. "Run boy, run!" I cried involuntarily.
The two antagonists sprang into action when their prey was half up the road and bombarded him furiously, tackling him down to the snow. The boy kicked and screamed and cried as the bigger of the two boys managed to pin his arms behind his back, dragging him away a small distance from any view of any of the schoolhouse windows and the other boy smashed him square in the mouth with a tight fist. "Shut your bleedin mouth Ebenezer! Less you know whats good for you!"
My heart panged furiously as blood trickled from the corners of his tiny mouth as well as tears leaking from his eyes. I turned to Fan who watched the scene unfold with cool hands clasped before her, unmoved. Young Mr. Scrooge still held fast two the piece of parchment he held in his hand. Even as the two boys raided his pockets and withdrew what little money he had. "No please!" Young Scrooge begged upon his knees reaching up for the coin. "I earned that, I'm going to use it for a cab home for Christmas!" I then noted that; the two boys looked to be seemingly younger than Scrooge and oddly familiar to me; like a version of Mathew that was slightly off and even more so the littler of the two brutes and much worse the more taunting of the two was a near spitting image of our Tim; chestnut hair, large hazel eyes, tan freckled skin and all, only slightly chubbier and in refined clothes. But no, no that couldn't be right.
"Poor little Ebenezer. Whats a matter; your daddy disown you because you killed your mum being born? I bet he wishes you was never born!" jeered the little bugger kicking Scrooge in the groin and toppling him back over for his companion to hold him down. "No one will ever love or want you Ebenezer, and you know why?" Another swift kick. "Because you are little, plain, poor and stupid that's why!" the words seem more cutting than any physical blow and they hit home with me because I had heard them before in my own lifetime. Scrooge blinked tears away and got to his knees and pushed the other boy back with all he had. "That's not so!" he rebutted trembling. "That's not so! My little sister loves me! she always will!" a new resolve begun to show, a fighting one and I was glad of it! But the elder of the two brutes found a new means of weakness and snatched the letter from out of Scrooge's hand and read the addressing; To Fanny E. Scrooge. At this point there was some vulgar comments from the elder of the two (vulgar enough to make a whore blush) and then even more so the boy held his trousers away from his body, rubbing the letter down there and then tossed it back upon the snow saying "my regards to your sister" and laughed.
It made me ill and infuriated; had I been there in person, I might have knocked the two idiots heads together so hard that they might have shared thoughts for the rest of their days. the disgust derived as a deep pit in my chest. I had never seen such hateful little monsters. Little Scrooge sobbed and held the letter brokenly because he could not in all good knowledge send it now. Fan spoke again. "My poor brother was at the mercy of those two for many years. He wrote me of it often." My heart sunk at this. "He was a gentle soul once, my brother. Very gentle and very helpless. But will you not look after the two others." She points towards the direction the two descend to and I shake my head, I had knelt down by little Scrooge in the snow and tried to place a hand upon his shoulder, only to realize that I was a ghost and these were only shadows of past events, though what it had to do with me or my family I knew not. "Less they get whats coming to them, I care not to ever look upon them again!"
"But you do." She reasons. "You do look upon those two boys again. In fact, the younger of the two you look upon quite often with nothing but admiration and love, and you endeavor to call him father. The other you will note, is your Uncle Benedict Cratchit."
I turn at this and gawk at her. "You jest with me!" I say before standing. "You must! That could not be my father!" Flabbergasted and horrified by the idea, I then look after the two boys who went down the road whooping and proud, as they praised each other as "Ben" and "Bob". I cringe inwardly. I had an Uncle Ben, I knew that by hearing it in passing growing up. He died when I was very little and dad would always turn a sickening color when my uncle was brought up but I never knew why. This I could believe, was plausible, but my dad having a mean spirit, even as a boy was impossible to comprehend. Especially when he had fought so hard to instill in all his children the art of kindness and good will. What had changed in him then?

The scene begun to morph into something different Such a mournful face. Yet it bore no sign of true sadness; not in watery eyes, not in a trembling lip and yet somehow all the sadness was in the eyes, you could mark it quite apparent in their blueness, like saves in the ocean. He was nineteen here and standing over a hospital bed which held in it a sheet under which was a lumpy form that was somehow still elegantly enough formed that One could tell that it was a woman underneath
I turned to Fan behind me who's solemn nod ascents to me that the creature underneath the sheet was indeed her person. I turned back as he knelt down and folded his arms above her and wept into them. "Oh Fan, my little Fan. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't protect you better." He sobbed. In a scene behind him I could see…I could see a lady with a baby getting ready to leave, the child was about one year old and was coughing something terrible and I could actually feel it in my own chest, the mother in all naturalness looked gravely tired and worried. This sight wouldn't have been astonishing in a hospital had it not been that the mother in this case was my own and the child was myself. I stared at the fat little rutty face and hazel eyes; sickly and little as it stared beyond my mother's shoulder at the man sobbing. He gets to his feet when a nurse approaches with another infant, a new born one. Fred.
Young Scrooge dries his eyes with the back of his sleeve and stands up straight as the nurse passes him his new nephew he takes the baby begrudgingly and cradles it looking miserable and I cannot help but recall a conversation we once had in the tavern where we took our lunches and he had explained why he kept his nephew at arms-length for so long. Mr. Scrooge had told me that he had come to understand as a boy, when a mother dies in childbirth that it was the child's fault. Thus he applied this to poor Fred…just as it had been applied to him in the schoolyard by my father. Oh cruel irony!
My attention was then averted back to my mother and myself as I continued to cough and wheeze. Mum had hinted that I had been sickly in the past but never to the extent of Tim which had given her hopes that Tim would recover. Yet the odd thing was my mother did not look poverty stricken as she had for most of my life, she looked wealthy and thin and refined, just as dad had done in the memory before. But how was this? then like a storm blowing away dust the buried recollection came back to me. "We were not always poor".

The mist swirled and parted again onto another scene; the house stood a striking dark blue behind a forest of willows. I remember it vaguely having two sitting rooms and a library. I was an infant and tot here that was why I could barely remember, but I did have flashes of this place in my mind like a dream. I looked up to the nursery window and saw mum and dad arguing fretfully, waving their arms and all. Mum was crying.
There were movers, movers removing fine furniture from the house. Oh yes, somehow I remembered it now…. We were not moving, we were becoming poor and being repossessed. I then saw a four year old girl out in the front yard, drenched in bows and lace. Pig-nosed and full cheeked. She spun absentmindedly and sang to herself, foolish little creature. Imagining that this was her castle and being princess of all she surveyed due to a loving father's fantastical stories and whims of love. She'd never had imagined that it would change.
"You're bloody brother deserved whatever he got!" my mother shrilled as she followed dad storming out our front door, he was boiling. "Shut up!" cried my father as he scooped me up and resting me on his hip. "I am sick of your voice Emily!" he shot. "How was I suppose to know that Ben would up and get himself into a gambling debt and then get himself murdered?" he bounced me up and down more to try and calm himself than anything. Mum started chasing after the movers but never stopped addressing father. "How will we live Bob? How will we survive it?" she wailed.
Dad spat the next few words. "Yeah well we can afford a few less of those dinner parties of yours and those damned dresses. Now the world can see you for what you really married me for my money!"
Mum was wounded by this and shot back. "Go to hell! I wish I wasn't pregnant with another of your children or I would leave, you hear me!"
"Good! Leave and you can go to hell!" he walked off with me towards the forest and Fan beckoned me to follow. When dad stopped he sat upon a tree stump with me upon his knee, he looked milder now. I wrapped my little arms around his neck and he touched my cheek. "Ah my little girl." He sighed pressing his forehead to mine. "I am so sorry for this, can you forgive your papa?"
My younger self nods. "Yes but why are those men taking our things and why does mummy wish to leave?" I ask innocently. He readjust me on his lap and purses his lips as he thinks of how to explain. "I am going to be straight with you Martha, do you think you can handle that?" he asks.
I nod again and he continues. "Mama….well your mum is very angry with me. she did not wish to marry me in the first place but our marriage was agreeable to both my parents and hers because your grandpapa left me with a large sum of money and now because of your Uncle Ben I no longer have that money." He looked winded by the explanation and adds. "Your Uncle Ben was not a very nice man."
"All this is because of money then?" I ask.
Dad pulls out his handkerchief and daps the sweat from his brow. "I'm afraid so my love." He consents. "Money can be a wicked, wicked thing, you must never let it taint your heart my Martha. You must be good and kind and try not to live beyond your means."
The words had stuck with me forever.
Behind my father and my younger self two young men in top hats approached with even steps. Both were very handsome young men with dark hair, though one had a more bulbous nose than the other and had slanted green eyes as apposed to large silvery blue. Both looked indignant as my father stood up uneasily and sat me down. "Mr. Scrooge, Mr. Marley good day." My father addressed them.
"We just have a few papers that need signing Mr. Cratchit." Said Mr. Marley flatly withdrawing a book. "Then we will be on our way, we know this is a tough time for you."
During the exchange Mr. Scrooge never removed his eyes from my father and the glance there was almost piercing. I wondered if he somehow remembered him and my uncle from the awful taunting of his childhood and if he did not see some just vengeance in this. if only I could read his thoughts. He never spoke of it outright even when we had become so dear to each other, I could not help but think that he did it to spare me.
My younger self looked up at him, studied him, fixated. He sneered. By the end of it Mr. Marley begun to walk away even as my father was still pleading. But young Mr. Scrooge stayed put. Mr. Marley called back to him. "Ho Ebenezer, come along less you have suddenly developed a bleeding heart." The remark was smug, cast over the shoulder with an arched brow.
Young Mr. Scrooge snarled and looked back down at me and then at my father. My young self backing behind dad's leg a little. "The man does have a child and one on the way after all Jacob, and we are in need of a clerk." At this my father's eyes brightened, clearly blind to the drudgery that was before him. He begun shaking Mr. Scrooge's hand profusely. "Thank ye sir! Thank ye, you will not regret it!" he then nudged me forward. "What do we say to Mr. Scrooge my dear?'
With hesitation I answered. "Th-thank you Mr. S, sir!"

I suddenly was very much aware that Fan was still with me as she narrated. "Let us see more of your past." The scene begun to fade again and I found myself reaching out my hand to try and stop it from going any further, the first few years of poverty were very dark and very wretched. There were many arguments and many tears, and somehow I felt like I was always in the way though they loved me well enough; though it did not help that I was often shuttled off into the street so that mum could have some reprieve when taking care of the little ones and I was often left alone. Peter had been too small to remember anything of it and I kept the hurt and memories buried. It got better once Belinda was born; like somehow mum and dad suddenly saw the worth in one another and were beginning to fall in love. They were milder and more comfortable. Once Tim was born they were head over heels and a happy family. I felt an immense hurt that we could not have been happy sooner. I think in a way this had made me somewhat guarded. Such loneliness. And though it got better, it still was very hard to remember.