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have,’ replied the man. ‘We lent your husband money and he knew the consequences in not keeping up his payments to us.’
    ‘Is that how you sleep, then?’ she said. ‘By reciting that tale to yourself?’
    Even from behind, Sam could see the man bristle.
    ‘I shall take my leave of you, madam,’ he said. ‘You must quit this house and all its contents. They will be forfeited against your husband’s debt. I trust that you will find accommodation with family or friends. Good day.’
    The man bowed. Their mother reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
    ‘We have no friends,’ she said. ‘Nor family. This is all my family here. We are everything to each other. Please, I beg you.’
    They were to leave even that house. Their mother would live in the prison with their father, while Sam and Lizzie lived with strangers.
    Sam had hoped that when their father died of jail fever, the death might free his mother from the duty she felt to be at his side. But the same fever that took him took her a week later.
    And so they were alone in the world.
    ‘Madam,’ replied the man, ‘there is nothing for me to do. I’m sorry.’
    With that, he turned to face them. The face was younger, with a touch more colour to it, but its owner was still instantly recognisable. It was Jacob Marley.

Sam and Lizzie were used to sleeping on paving slabs and iron grates and doorsteps, being moved on by constables and woken by drunks. Their sleep was normally as slight a thing as tissue paper, but this night was a soft and heavy blanket.
    It was Lizzie who woke first.
    ‘Sam!’ she whispered.
    Sam had no idea how many times Lizzie had said his name before he woke, rising out of the depths of sleep like a miner, blinking into the light, Marley’s face still imprinted on his mind.
    Voices!
    ‘What?’ said Sam, squinting into the gloom, forgetting where they were for a moment.
    Voices. There were voices in the room with them. But what was going on? The floor was cold and damp. There was earth beneath them now, not cushions as there had been. Had it all been a dream? Or did the dream, or whatever it was, continue? Sam edged towards a point in the tablecloth where it seemed to join like curtains.
    ‘Are spirits’ lives so short?’ he heard Scrooge say.
    ‘My life upon this globe is very brief,’ said another voice, deep and booming. ‘It ends tonight.’
    ‘Tonight?’ cried Scrooge.
    ‘Tonight!’ repeated the other. ‘At midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.’
    Sam edged closer to the cloth. The deep and booming voice seemed to come from high above him. He was afraid as never before. His hold on what was real or unreal was loosening and he could not guess at the scale of whatever might greet them next. As Sam gripped the folds of the material he was surprised by the weight of it. And was that a fur trim?
    ‘I see something strange,’ said Scrooge, ‘protruding from your robes. Is it a foot or a claw?’
    Sam realised Scrooge must be talking about his own foot, which was sticking out from under the fur trim.
    ‘It might be a claw, for all the flesh there is upon it,’ said the booming voice. ‘Look here!’
    The next instant, the cloth was wrenched asunder.
    Sam and Lizzie crouched, squinting and horribly revealed, like whelks pulled from their shell. They were in some terrible barren place and there stood Scrooge, trembling in his nightgown and cap.
    ‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge nervously, looking at Sam and Lizzie as though they were feral dogs, ‘are they yours?’
    Sam saw a giant pair of bare feet on either side of them, and then a voice boomed out above and Sam turned to see that, instead of being under the table, they were now under the heavy green fur-trimmed robes of a mighty bearded giant.
    ‘They are Man’s,’ said the giant.
    Scrooge stared at them incredulously.
    ‘This boy,’ said the giant, indicating Sam without looking at him, ‘is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, but most of all beware this