Daily story, December 25, 2024

It was early February: the shortening nights didn’t feel shorter, but the lengthening days felt longer. Scrooge had been avoiding the books. He had been avoiding the business altogether, leaving it to Bob and paying him more again for the responsibility. To give out prize turkeys and charitable donations was a wonderful thing: to be a man of business in a city of squeezing, covetous sinners was something rather different. It shook the fragile grasp he had regained on his soul. And what if he could not live in this new way? What if expenses climbed, and the debt he forgave was just the sum needed for Tiny Tim’s doctor? The spirits had shown him the cost of a closed heart. Scrooge feared the cost of an open heart was greater, and that he must come to understand it alone.

But not alone—never alone, now. For there was the cost, but here was the profit: that he could seek comfort from the spirits of the living.