The Phantom slowly and gravely approached you. When it came near you bent down upon one knee, you couldn't take the air for it was scattered with gloom and misery making it feel hard to breath.
The spirit was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, it's face, its form, and left nothing of itself visible for you to see as it outstretched it's hand. It would be hard for the spirit to detach itself from the darkness by which it was surrounded by.
As the tall figure stood beside you, you felt yourself fill with solemn dread. You knew no more for the spirit neither spoke nor moved.
"Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" You asked.
The spirit didn't answer but pointed onward with it's hand.
"You are about to show me the shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us, is that so spirit?" You asked once again.
The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer you received.
Although you were well used to the ghost company by now, you couldn't help but fear the silent shape so much that your legs trembled beneath you. You found that you could hardly stand when you prepared to follow it. The spirit paused for a moment, observing your condition, and giving you the time to recover.
But you were all the worse for this. It thrilled you with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the ducky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon you, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of black.
"Ghost of the Future!" You exclaimed ,"I fear you more than any other ghost I have seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be a better person from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and to do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"
It gave you no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
"Lead on!" You said. "Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, spirit!"
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards you. You followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, you thought, and carried you along.
You scarcely seemed to enter the city, for the city rather seemed to spring up about you. But here you were in the heart of the city.
The spirit had stopped right besides one little knot of someone business men. Observing that the hand was pointing to the, you advanced to listen to their conversation.
"No," said one of the men, "I don't know much about it either, I only know that she's dead." Wait what?
"When did she die?" inquired the other.
"Last night I believe."
"What? Why, what was the matter with her? She died at a pretty young age so that's kind of unusual."
"It seems that she died from the same illness as her aunt did. Been going on from quite some time now."
"What has she done with the money?" Asked the other man.
"I'm not sure." Said the man as he yawned.
"Left it to her company perhaps. She hasn't left it to me or anyone else for that matter. That's all I know."
They both laughed.
"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," Said the same speaker, "It's not like many people will even be attending. Might as well make up a party and volunteer."
"I don't mind going if lunch is provided," The other man said.
They both shared another laugh.
"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all, I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, that is if anyone else is willing to. Come to think of it, I'm not all sure that I wasn't her most particular friend. We used to stop and speak when ever we met. Good-bye!"
Speakers and listeners strolled away. You knew these men, and looked to the spirit for an explanation.
The Phantom glided on into the street. It's finger pointed always of standing well in their esteem. Of course in a business point of view that is.
"How are you?" Said one.
"How are you?" Returned the other.
"Well!" said the first, "The witch is finally gone at last, hey?"
"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold isn't it?"
"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not an ice skater I suppose?"
"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"
Not another word for their meeting had finally ended, their conversation, and their parting.
You were first inclined to be surprised that the spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial. But you felt as if it had some kind of hidden purpose that it set yourself to consider what it was likely to be.
They could have scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of your aunt. But that was the past and this ghost province was the future. You resolved to treasure up every word that you had heard and everything you had seen. Especially when it came to observing the shadow of the ghost when it appeared.
You had an expectation that the conduct that maybe if you saw your future self you could find some sort of clue that you had missed, you could render the solution of these riddles easily.
Quite and dark, besides you stood the Phantom with its out-stretched hand. When you snapped out of your thoughts you turned your attention to the Phantom, who's hand started to turn, and it's situation in reference to yourself, that the unseen eyes were looking at you keenly. It made you shudder and feel very cold.
You both left the busy scene and went to a obscure part of the town, a place where you had never even been to before. Even though you recognized and had heard many rumors about this place from your classmates, it had a bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched. The whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and with misery as people ran around drunk or sat there living on the streets.
You and the Phantom came into the presence of a man who was sitting near an old stove. He had gray hair and seemed to be nearly seventy years old as he blew a puff of smoke from his cigarette out the tattered old window.
Turning around you saw a woman walk into the shop. As the man blew another puff, the woman who had been carrying a bundle on her back threw it on the floor and sat down on a stool.
"What's that?" The man asked the woman.
The woman smiled triumphantly as she opened the sack taking out what seemed to be some sort of tapestry that seems really familiar.
"Who's the worse for missing the loss for something? Not a dead person that's for sure."
"No, indeed." Laughed the man.
The woman ushered him to look into the sack again, and as he did so he took out an expensive looking vase, shoes, some clothing, towels, and some silverware.
"If she wanted to keep them after she was dead that is. That wicked screw." The woman said laughing as she observed the tapestry some more. The man noticed something odd, picked up the bag, and took out a long cloth.
"What are these? Bed curtains?" The man asked.
"Yep!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward, "Bed curtains!"
"So you took they down, rings and all, with her lying there?" He asked.
"I did. Why not?" She said. "Hey don't drop that oil on the blankets!"
"Her blankets?" The man asked.
"Whose else did you think?" replied the woman. "It's not like she's going to get cold anytime soon. Anyway I could get any of the really nice clothes, a waist if you tell me."
"Why a waist?" The man asked.
"They're going to be burying her in them." Laughed the woman.
You listened to this dialogue in horror. Viewing them is detestation and disgust, which could have hardly have been greater, thought they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.
The woman laughed when the man, who was producing a flannel bag with money in it, took out their several gains upon the ground.
"This is finally the end of it! She frightened everyone way from her when she was alive, to profit us when she was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"
"Spirit!" You said, shuddering from head to toe, "I see. The case of this unhappy woman might be my own. My life tends that way, now. My god, what is this!"
You recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed. Now you were near a bed, a bare, uncurtained bed, on which beneath a ragged sheet, there lay something covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.
The room was very dark, too dark too be able to observe anything with accuracy. You glanced around the room and saw a pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed. On it was what seemed to be the body of a woman.
You glanced at the phantom. It's steady hand was pointing to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, by just the motion of a finger, would have disclosed the face. You thought of how easy it would have been to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at your side.
You could just feel the cold, rigid, dreadful Death set up the altar and dress it with such terror.
She lay, in the dark empty house, with no friends, no man nor woman, nor child.
"Spirit!" You said, "this is a fearful place. Even though I'll be leaving it I will not forget it's lesson. Let's go!" But the spirit still pointed to the to the head.
"I understand you," you returned, "and I would do it, if I could. But I can't do it. I just can't spirit." Again it seemed to look upon you.
"If there is any person in the town or city who feels emotion caused by this woman's death," you said quite agonized, "shows that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you too!"
The Phantom spread its dark robe before you for a moment, like a wing, and withdrawing it revealing a room by daylight to where a mother and her children were.
It seemed that the woman was expecting someone with anxious eagerness. She was pacing and startled at every sound. She looked out the window, to looking at the clock. She could hardly bear the voices of the children outside in their play.
The a knock at the door was heard, she hurried to the door, and met with a man Their faces where careworn and depressed. As she sat down at the table the woman asked her faintly about the news.
"Is it good," She said, "or bad?"
"Bad," the man answered.
"Are we ruined?"
"No. There is still hope my dear."
"If she relents," she said amazed, "there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened."
"She is past relenting, said the man. "She is dead."
She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth, but she was thankful in her soul to hear it and she said so, with clasped hands.
"Remember the woman who I had spoken to to last night? She told me that when I tried to see her and obtain a week's delay. And what I though was an excuse to avoid me turns out to have been quite true. She was not only ill but dying, then."
"To whom will our debt be transferred?" She asked.
"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready with their money. And even though we are not it would be bad fortune. We may sleep tonight with light hearts!"
And they did. The children's faces hushed and clustered around to hear what they so little understood.
"Let me see some tenderness with connected to death," You said, " or that dark room where we were earlier."
The ghost conducted you through several streets familiar to your own feet as you both went along. When you looked up your eyes widened for you were standing in front of Lili Zwingli's house. Remembering that dwelling visit from earlier you found the mother, father, and their older children seated around the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet.
The mother and her eldest was sewing and her second was reading a book as the father was watching the fire.
"The color hurts my eyes." She says putting her hand up to her face.
Color? Wait a minute! Where was Lili and Vash?
"They'll get better soon. And I wouldn't look so drained when Lili comes home. It's almost past time that she should be back by now." The father said.
"You mean it is past her time." The second child said, "but I think Lili will be walking a bit slower than she usually does."
"I have always seen her walk with-I have always known her to walk with Vash right next to her."
They all agreed.
"Your sister loved him so much-so much. And there she is!" All of them shot up from their seats to met her at the door, little Lili in her comforter.
She was very cheerful with them and spoke pleasantly to all the family members. She praised the industry of what lie on the table. They would be done not long before Sunday.
"Sunday! You went to day Lili?" her mother said.
"Yes mother," returned Lili. "I wish that you and father could have come along. I promised him that I would walk there every Sunday. My brother. My big brother!" cried Lili, "No why! Brother, why!"
She broke down all at once. She couldn't help it. Her and her brother had always been inseparable from the beginning. And knowing that that one person that she had loved most was gone, torn her apart.
She left the room and went upstairs to the room above which was lighted cheerfully and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set next to her brother. Poor Lili sat down in it, and when she had thought a little and composed herself, she kissed her brother on the nose before she began to break down again, crying into the sheets, staining them with her tears.
"Spectre." You said, "Something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it but I'm not quite sure how. Tell me...what was that woman we saw lying in that bed. Dead?"
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed you as before though as different this time. Indeed there is no order in these latter visions, save that they were from the future. And yes, indeed the spirit did not stay from anything, but went straight on, as to the end just as desired.
"This place," You said, "is of no occupation and has been for a long time. All I see is a house." The spirit began to point elsewhere.
"The house is that way. Why are you pointing over there?" You exclaimed. The finger went through no change in motion. When you turned around you were met with something that was most definitely not there before.
"A graveyard?" You where standing right in the middle of the graveyard now, as you stood above the wretched person who now lay beneath you. The spirit stood among the graves and pointed down to one. You advanced towards it trembling. The ghost stood exactly where it had been but you dreaded the new meaning you had seen in it's solemn shape.
"Before I come any closer to the grave that you are pointing at," you said, "answer me this one question. Are these the shadows of the things what WILL be, or any they the shadows of what MAY BE?"
The ghost stood pointing to the grave.
"Man's course will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," you said, "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is with what you are about to show me!"
The spirit remained immobile.
You crept towards the stone, trembling as you went, following the finger. The neglected stone which read your own name: (F/n) (L/n).
"Was I the one who lay upon that bed?" you cried. The finger moved from the grave to you and back again.
"No! No spirit, oh no, no!"
The finger was still there.
"Spirit!" You cried, "hear me! I am not the person I was. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?" For the first time it's hand began to shake.
"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year. I will live in the past, present, and future. The Spirits of all three will strive with in me. I will not shut out the lessons that they taught me!"
"If you have finally learned your lesson then our job here is done, da?" Your eyes widen when you heard the voice. You looked up at the spirit as it shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bed pot.
