Gee, I wonder who Mizal's secret santa is. . . Anyway, enjoy!
It was a dark, foggy Christmas Eve on the island of CYStia. But even so, folks came and went down the cobblestone streets, their paths lit by flickering streetlights and candles decorating homes and shops in townsquare for the Christmas season.
Joy was most certainly in the air, as couples chattered happily, children sputtered about Saint Nick and delighted corgi dogs gnawed happily on bones thrown to them from the restaurant's chef.
But on one street, whose lights cared not to ignite, was Miss Mizal, and her clerk, Sentinel Cratchit.
Mister Cratchit was working tirelessly at Miss Mizal's counting house. Two fires warmed each of them at opposite ends of the old brick building, filled with papers, points stacked tall, and thick ledgers reaching the ceilings.
Cratchit's fire grew low as he dared not spend more than a moment away from his desk, endlessly counting endless points from the accounts of those indebted to Miss Mizal.
Miss Mizal, whose fire was raging and hot, reread the ledgers that towered upon the shelves all around the lonely two. She made sure every point to the quarter was correct. If it was not, she took a quill and feverishly scribbled beside the names.
Cratchit puffed into his shivering fingers, continuing to count upon the register. He managed to will himself to ask Mizal, between cool breaths, "I've counted these accounts' points three times now. Everything is correct, Miss. Might I leave a bit early today? It is Christmas Eve, after all."
Mizal glanced up at him, just over the brim of her glasses. "Very well."
"Very well!" Sentinel Cratchit called happily.
"But I will dock your pay for the night."
Cratchit's smile fell. "I suppose I can't afford it," he admitted. "At least I have Christmas Day off."
"Unpaid, of course," Mizal remarked. "I've got to run the place all by myself tomorrow, thanks to it."
Cratchit continued, spirit quickly fading, "It isn't often I get to spend an entire day with the family, unpaid or not. My various half-animal children will be so happy. Oh, and my sweet Tiny Tim, he will be happiest of all. And I hope he is. For it might be his last."
Cratchit's words turned grave. Mizal looked back to her ledgers, unconcerned with the physical state of this Tiny Tim. Cratchit turned back to his work as well. And the counting house was filled with the clicking of registers and the scribbling of ink.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and without time for a response, the door clattered open.
"Miss Mizal!" called Sir Sherbet, adorned in a festive paper bag for the season. "I wanted to stop by, and as if you would like to join us, tonight, for a site holiday party! We never see you."
"Bah, humfag," Mizal muttered. "Can't you see I'm busy? All play and no work and the site falls apart."
"Very well," Sir Sherbet whispered, turning sharply on a heel. He tipped his hat at Sentinel Cratchit. "Well I thought I would extend the invitation. You're always welcome. Good evening."
Mizal lowered her head, returning to work. The old door shut with a click.
~*~*~
Once the sun had sufficiently disappeared beneath the horizon, Mizal finally locked up the counting house for the night.
"Good evening, Miss," Cratchit offered, to which she merely waved a hand, pulling her long coat tight around her chin and returning home.
When Miss Mizal arrived at her extravagent townhouse, her dinner had been prepared, and left on the table. Her servants, like ungrateful old Cratchit dared to request for himself, had left early in the day, perhaps to return to their families for Christmas Day.
Unfathomable, Mizal thought and she ate the cold food.
In fact, the entire house was cold. And her luxurious sheets upon her canopied bed provided no warmth either. There was an atmosphere about this night, one that occurred every Christmas Eve, that left the air feeling cold and destitute. Regardless, Mizal took to bed, intent on waking up bright and early for another day of work. That was the only thing Christmas was anyway.
Miss Mizal barely fell into slumber when there was a creak of footsteps upon the floor, just outside the room. Perhaps a servant had not left after all.
There was a harrowing rattling of chains that followed those footsteps, clattering after every step, making Mizal's hair stand on edge.
The footsteps grew nearer, and the bedroom door suddenly crashed open, startling Mizal fully awake.
"Who, who goes there?" she demanded, clutching her sheets tightly to herself.
A figure appeared from the darkness, a shadowy, ghostly figure that stood no more than three feet tall. He was wrapped in chains and weights that dragged behind him. His hair white, his eyes soulless.
"Malk Marley?" Miss Mizal cried in horror.
"It is I, Mizal," Malk Marley confirmed in a low voice.
"My old business partner. But, you're dead!"
"Indeed I am, Mizal," he whispered, stumbling towards Mizal's bed on all fours, limping as if his bones were held together only by those chains and dripping bandages tied all around him. "I have come to warn you, lest you end up like me. Dead and doomed. My selfishness knew no bounds, now here I am, condemned to eternal damnation."
"The chains, your legs!" Mizal stuttered.
"Indeed. I cannot remove them. I must carry them for as long as my ghostly immortal life goes on. But there is hope for you yet, Mizal."
The capybara stalked around to the end of bed. Malk Marley's beady eyes stared into Mizal's soul.
"You will be visited by three ghosts tonight, Mizal," he warned. "The first, at the clock's stroke of one. The second, at the clock's stroke of two. And the third --- he will appear in his own time."
"What must I do?" Mizal pleaded.
But Malk Marley gave her no other answer, and vanished as he came, limping out the door. The rattling of the eternal chains lulled Mizal into a quick slumber.
~*~*~
The grandfather clock boomed at the stroke of one.
Mizal was awakened by a blinding golden light. Peering between fingers that sheltered her face from the dazzling light, she made out a womanly figure, with a puffy gown and a tall hat.
"Oh my," twittered the figure, "my bad. Oh this thing is so bright. But lucky for you, Miss Mizal, so is your future! But that's not where we are going."
"Who are you?" Mizal asked, sitting up in her bed.
"Didn't Malk Marley tell you? I'm the first ghost. The Ghost of Past." The Ghost of Past twiddled her fingers as she said, 'Ghost of Past'.
The Ghost of Past had long, curly blue hair and a beaming, lopsided smile. In her hand she held a candelabra. But unlike any candelabra Mizal had seen, this one had a dozen candles burning as bright as the sun.
"Oh, no no no," Mizal stuttered. "Ghosts aren't real."
"Well you're talking to one right now," The Ghost of Past remarked with a condescending shake of her head. Her golden hat glittered as she did so.
"I must have had some bad strawberry pudding with my dinner."
"Okay now, no need to be rude," The Ghost of Past replied. "Let's get going, Miss Mizal. I've got something to show you! Come, come, take my hand."
Mizal vehemently refused but the Ghost of Past marched up to her, grabbing Mizal's wrist and yanking her into the past with a giggle.
Again, Mizal was blinded, this time by a snow-covered landscape, just outside the now-desolate town of Infinite Story.
"I'm not cold at all," Mizal said to the Ghost of Past.
"Of course not. Consider us merely peeking in on what has already happened. You won't leave marks in the snow, nor misplace the path of a falling snowflake. Go, look at you, look at all your friends, leaving Infinite Story. Let's be for real, to leave for CYStia, the better site."
Mizal gazed down the streets of Infinite Story. Mizal remembered when they were once full of life, as bustling as modern day CYStia was. The library was booming too, although unmoderated. But Mizal stood, watching each of her peers step sail for CYStia, in hopes of making it to that promised land. Or dying on the way.
"No one asked me to join them," Mizal admitted. "I thought I was being stubborn. I thought I was being loyal. But the fact of the matter is, no one liked me enough to invite me."
"You stayed here for a long time, didn't you? Long after everyone of importance had left," The Ghost of Past ushered. "You knew this place was doomed, as soon as the first Pokémon story was published."
"I suppose you're right."
"Look again, Mizal."
A lonely capybara, just moments away from the train station, turned around, offered a paw to Mizal. Looking quite fresher than he had when Mizal had seen him hours before.
"Come with us, Mizal," Malk Marley said. "We'll be great moderators at CYStia."
Young Mizal smiled at Malk Marley, agreed to join him with just a nod of her head.
"Enough of this," Mizal snapped, looking away as the scene faded into twinkling snow. "I don't know what you're trying to prove to me, other than making me sick at the sight of my old friend."
"Your old friend, Mizal," the Ghost of Past replied.
"Enough!"
~*~*~
The crash of the clock striking two seared Mizal's mind, awakened her once again.
"I knew I shouldn't have had those energy drinks," she muttered, pressing her palms tightly against her eyes.
"Ho, ho, ho," called a voice from downstairs. "You didn't finish your hotdish? Don't mind if I do."
Descending the stairs, candle in hand, Mizal beheld a, rather small figure. Downed in the tiniest green robe and a wreath, lit by the tiniest candles for a hat. A cricket, currently snacking on what Mizal had left on her dinner plate.
The cricket was startled to find Mizal behind her.
"You must be the second ghost," Mizal said.
"Oop, didn't see you there. Uh, yes, yes I am. Sorry. I have lots of folks to see tonight. Thought I'd keep my energy up."
The cricket hiccuped, "Excuse me. I am the Ghost of Present, ooh, spooky."
"You are not particularly spooky."
"Yes, that's one thing I did not inherit from my father," The Ghost of Present admitted. "Anyway, ready to get going? Touch my hat."
With one finger, Mizal reached down and touched the Ghost of Present's little hat, and they were transported to a Christmas Eve party.
It was the CYStia's holiday party. And active CYStians were laughing and chattering, clinking glasses and munching on fruitcakes and the roasted corpses of recently slaughtered noobs. Even though Mizal was not seen or heard, she could very well smell and feel the deliciousness and happiness all about in this little party.
"This must be the party Sherbet invited me to," Mizal said.
The Ghost of Present sat on Mizal's shoulder, looking over the party with happiness. "I love a good party with friends," she chirped. "But what did you say? All play and no work, and the site falls apart, right, Mizal?"
Mizal was silent, gazing over who used to be her close friends. She had abandoned them, and this party, for what, for a couple points? Did points even really matter?
Mister Gower raised a glass, clinking a spoon against it. "I would like to propose, a game! A game of charades!"
His proposal was greeted with cheers.
Little Mister Peng, the penguin, hobbled to the front of the room, eagerly deciding to be the first to play. Mister Gower leaned down whispered the word into his ear.
Laughing erupted as Mister Peng tried his best to act out the word.
"Ogre!" someone shouted.
"No, no, that's obviously a witch!"
Peng spread his flippers from each side of his sides.
"Mizal! It's grumpy old Miss Mizal!" someone called.
"Why," Mizal exclaimed. The Ghost of Present laughed heartily.
"Take me away from this nonsense," Mizal demanded. "I've had enough of it."
"Very well," replied the Ghost of Present. "Let's go see what your clerk, Sentinel Cratchit and his family are doing on this jolly night."
The difference between the houses was stark, as a touch upon the Ghost of Present's hat whirred the two to the Cratchit's.
Sentinel Cratchit, his wife, and their two dozen children of various, half animal species, plus Tiny Tim, all sat around the ill little boy, laying in a tiny bed. Against the bed rested a tiny crutch. Tiny Tim's siblings all wore long faces as he coughed but tried to smile, reassuring them he was perfectly fine, and that they ought to be jolly instead.
"This is all the fault of that horrible Miss Mizal," Cratchit's wife exclaimed. "If only he paid you more. If only you could be here, at home with us more. Then Tiny Tim would not be so sick."
"Is that, Tiny Tim?" Mizal asked the Ghost of Present.
"Isn't it obvious?" the cricket retorted. "Yes. This is what you are keeping Sentinel Cratchit from. As long as they have his last Christmas together, though, Mizal? At least you gave him one last unpaid Christmas with his dying son."
"I can't bear this. Take me home immediately, Ghost," Mizal demanded. "Why do you all show me such horrible things."
"Very well. Touch my hat."
~*~*~
A some restless three hours went by as Mizal awaited the final ghost.
And appear this final ghost did, silently, at the end of her bed.
A towering, cloaked figure. There was darkness where a head should have been. Mizal gazed up at him, somber. Behind him, his robe trailed endlessly. He looked like a reaper.
"You are the last ghost? If the first two were Past and Present. You must be the Ghost of Future."
The Ghost of Future merely pointed towards the bedroom door with a slow raise of an arm. Mizal obediently followed and they were transported into, well, the future.
The future looked a lot like Mizal's townhouse, although now dusty and decrepit. The floorboards were cracked and loose, creaked under the weight of her footsteps. She followed the talking of whom sounded like her servants, into the kitchen.
They were tearing through the drawers, taking the silverware, the fine china, the golden candelabras. They stuffed them into their pockets, their hats, their shoes.
Mizal shouted, "Stop that! Put those down!" but the servants did not know she was there as they continued their petty thievery.
"I'll get a fine point for these," said the maid, silverware in hand.
"Yes," replied the cook, "and I'll get a fine point for these silk knickers." He stretched them wide.
Mizal frowned.
"It's the least she can do for us," said the maid. "Now that she's dead. I bet all this stuff would have gone to the grave with her anyway."
"Dead?" Mizal stuttered. She looked at the Ghost of Future, who said nothing one way or another.
He pointed then to the front door, which would take them to the CYStia cemetery.
"No, this can't be. The maid, she's not correct. . . It can't be."
They stepped out on frozen ground. The freezing winter weather struck Mizal, forced her to clasp her shoulders as she gazed upon the inevitable.
The Ghost of Future presented Mizal her own grave. In fact, it was her own funeral. The coffin was fresh in the ground. Not a solitary flower rested on the top. No one, not even Sherbet was there, to wish her farewell. To say goodbye, forever.
"My own grave!" Mizal exclaimed. "And there is no one here!"
Suddenly it all made sense. Malk Marley warning her, poor Sentinel Cratchit, his Tiny Tim, withering away just like Mizal herself in the future. The servants stealing from her home.
"I might just be a terrible person," Mizal admitted.
The Ghost of Future raised his shoulders.
"I've got to make this right. Take me back, Ghost. Tomorrow I will become a new person."
~*~*~
And so, once again the sun rose on the island of CYStia. It was a bright, fresh snow-covered day. There was a pleasant chill in the air that perked the children up enough to open their presents with excitement. It indeed was the jolliest day of the year.
Mizal bound out of bed, in the best mood she had been in in twenty-five years. Her limbs were alive with joy, there was a skip in her step and an extra sway in her hips. She was going to right all her wrongs on this day.
She tore open her bedroom window, calling to a cheery monkey that danced below.
"You there, what is today?"
"Why, it's Christmas, ma'am!" the monkey chirped back at her.
"Yes, very good! Do me a favor, little monkey, go buy the largest roasted noob you can find, and bring it to the Cratchit's!"
Mizal tossed some coins at the monkey. "Go on," she said, "and keep the change."
The monkey shrieked with glee and bounced off to buy the largest roasted noob he could find.
Mizal hurried dressed and rushed to Sir Sherbet's.
She rapped on the door, almost embarrassed now. She hoped Sherbet would forgive her after all this, and she anxiously squeezed her scarf.
The door opened.
"Miss Mizal?"
"Uh, yes. Do you suppose you would have me for Christmas today? After all I've said and done? In fact, do you have it in your heart to forgive me?"
Sir Sherbet smiled with his eyes. "Of course," he replied. "Come in. We've all been waiting for you."
THE END
