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A Midsummers' Carol - Part Eight
by Clint Driftwood

Read the story from the beginning

This Dickens parody was the winner in the prose section of our Summer Parodies competition, and was originally contributed to the Fantasy Archers topic on The Archers .

Something was pressing down on AldridgeÂ’s bed; the sheets held him tightly as if he were in a vice. The grandfather clock in the hall below chimed one. Aldridge tried to move, but could not move a muscle. He strained to breathe; it was like he had a great rock pushing down on his ribcage. Aldridge stared into the night his eyes wide open in panic. He thought he saw blackness above his bed, a blackness that was deeper than the ambient darkness of the room, nothing defined by an outline, more like the shadow of a shadow.

Two small beads of light appeared; Aldridge thought they looked like a pair of eyes. They began to shine with an inner light like pale moonlight. He looked away sharply, for as he looked at them he had a feeling of deep despair and a cold shiver racked his body. He felt as if cold fingers were closing around his trembling heart and ice was forming in his veins.

"Are you the third spirit?" he managed to gasp, "The Spirit of Midsummers yet to be?"
He felt the bed move to and fro slightly; he turned his head and he saw the two lights move up and down as if they were set in an invisible head that was nodding. Again he felt the cold shiver freezing him and he quickly turned his head away.
"Take me where and show me what you will, Spirit" he whimpered, not daring to look again.

Velvet darkness covered him, he shut his eyes and the pressure on his body was gone, but he felt colder than he had ever felt before or imagined anyone could ever feel. Aldridge heard voices and opened his eyes; he was standing in a small kitchen. It was quite sparse but clean. Remembering the Ghost he glanced sideways there was nothing substantial at his side, just a dark shadow on the wall; he shivered again. The two children and their grandmother entered the kitchen, the children looked a little taller than he remembered.

"Where is mum? SheÂ’s late," said the boy.
"She will be here soon I expect." the grandmother said softly.
"Yes Roy," said the girl, "You know she likes to pop in to see Christopher most nights on her way home."

The kitchen door open and in stepped their mother, she seemed to Aldridge to be a little smaller somehow, and he saw she had been crying.
"Mum! Mum! Shouted the boy, "At last IÂ’m starv....." but stammered to silence as he saw his motherÂ’s face.

"I just popped in the graveyard on the way home to tidy ChristopherÂ’s grave." she said, trying to sound brighter than she was feeling, "Here our Emma, put these in the frying pan will you love, thereÂ’s a good girl." she said handing her daughter a box of eggs, and rushed towards the hall holding her coat up before her as to show all present that she meant to hang it on the hook. But they all saw that she was really trying to hide her face with it, as she had started to weep once more.

Aldridge could not believe what he had witnessed, "What has happened to Christopher? he asked, hoping the Ghost would say something at last. But no answer came.
"Then tell me this Spirit he said after some consideration, "If they are just shadows of the things to come can they be changed?"

Again no answer was forthcoming. Again he was drowned in velvet darkness as cold as a grave.
The hoots of an owl made him open his eyes; it was nighttime, the moon tried in vain to shine from behind dark clouds that sailed on the wind and seemed to purposefully cover her face. Aldridge saw that he was standing before the gate to St. StephenÂ’s graveyard. He shook with terror at the sight.
"No! No! Spirit," he cried, "Please donÂ’t make me enter such an awful place."

The Ghost pushed at AldridgeÂ’s back and he shot forward through the gate. The wind blew stronger and the leaves in the treetops rustled, their branches knocked together sounding like a giant demented grasshopper. Rain started to fall. The Ghost pushed again and again, Aldridge protesting each time. With the last push Aldridge fell to his knees in the mud. He expected to be picked up by the Ghost and pushed again, but when this did not happen he looked forward. There was a dark hole before him and at the far side was a newly carved tombstone. He read the words on it; they burnt his eyes as if they had been carved from fire....... Brian Aldridge 1933 to......He let out such a terrible wail at reading them that its sound seemed to overcome the wind, as if he only existed inside his own scream. He felt a push in the small of his back and tumbled into the grave down and down he fell.

Down and down Aldridge fell. He was screaming as he fell one long scream, as if he was screaming his life out of his body. He landed on something soft. He opened his eyes. He was back in his bedroom, sunlight streamed in through holes in his tattered drapes.

"IÂ’m still alive!" he shouted, and started to laugh, he could not stop laughing. Then he began to cry, then cry and laugh at the same time.
"Its true!" He exclaimed, and jumped out of his bed and ran to the window. This time he did pull the curtains from their hangings in his haste to open them.
"Well, no matter," he said, "They needed replacing."
He looked out of his window, and his laughing ceased at the beauty of the scene. There before him in all its glory were the fields, farms and houses of Ambridge.
A thought struck him, "How many days have I missed?"

He saw a young boy in the lane in the distance. Aldridge dressed as fast as he could and was still tucking in his shirt as he ran down the marble stairs and burst out of the front door. He continued down his drive, trying to get his arm into the sleeve of his jacket that was inside out. Into the lane he ran and the boy stopped dead in his tracks upon first sight of what he presumed to be an escaped lunatic.

"Boy! Yes you boy!" Aldridge shouted.
"Who me Sir?" returned the boy, rather startled.
"Yes you boy," said Aldridge, "What day is this?"
"Why Sir, its midsummerÂ’s day of course!"
"Oh, good," Aldridge said, "Oh, I have not missed a day, those wise Spirits have done three nights work in just one."
On hearing this, the boy took a pace backwards thinking that he had indeed presumed correctly.
"Boy!" Aldridge almost shouted, he was that excited, "Is that prize goose still in the butchers in Ambridge?"
"Nigel Pargeter Sir?" said the boy trying to repress his laughter, " No Sir, I think heÂ’s gone home to Lower Loxley."
"Oh, very good," laughed Aldridge, "What a sense of humour for one so young, a bright boy, yes very bright indeed."
The boy blushed on hearing this unexpected remark from Brian Aldridge himself.
"Look boy," said Aldridge fumbling with his wallet, "Here is fifty pounds, run to the butchers and buy it for me and bring it to my house, do it in forty five minutes and I will pay ten pounds."

The boy took the money and ran towards the village, Aldridge shouted after him, "Boy! If you are back within thirty I will pay you twenty pounds! And Boy send a taxi here for me as soon as you get to Ambridge."
Aldridge skipped back to his home, clapping his hands in the air, and stopping now and then to smell flowers that he saw growing in the hedgerow.

Read the final part

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