The Last of the Spirits Read Online Free PDF

money? It must be somewhere. A man like Scrooge would never trust it to a bank. He wouldn’t trust anyone. Sam wondered if it was all locked away in a safe at Scrooge’s office. But no – he’d want it close. Sam would want it close if it was him.
    And what about the old miser? Perhaps Sam ought to wait until he came back and make the old man tell him where the money was. He smiled to himself at the thought. Put the fear of God into the old devil and see what happened. If he didn’t tell . . . Well – he’d only have himself to blame for what might happen then.
    Lizzie moved away from the fire glow and climbed up on to Scrooge’s bed, which groaned and wheezed as though even her slight weight might force its collapse. She sighed, nestling down into the dusty folds of the counterpane.
    ‘You can’t sleep there,’ said Sam, standing up. ‘Not in his bed. He’ll be back before we know it, and then what? We have to find somewhere else.’
    ‘But . . .’ she murmured, barely awake.
    ‘Lizzie!’ he hissed, tugging at her arm. ‘Come on!’
    Sam half dragged her from the bed and they moved towards the tall panelled door to an adjacent room. Sam expected it to be locked, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it opened with a whine and a creak when he turned the brass knob.
    Scrooge must have a maid who came in while the old man was at work, Sam thought, though she clearly did not live here. Who would want to live with this old fiend? But a frugal fire glimmered faintly in the hearth and gave just enough light to see that the room was surprisingly large, with two sets of curtained windows and a large dining table and chairs.
    Sam wondered why Scrooge felt the need to have such a table. He was sure that the old man never entertained anyone in these rooms. The air was musty and stale.
    Lizzie headed towards the hearth and curled up in front of it like a cat. Sam found a candlestick with the greasy stub of a candle in it, and lit it from the fire. The flame’s glow melted the darkness and revealed previously hidden furniture and details.
    ‘It’s nice to be inside,’ said Lizzie quietly.
    ‘I thought you was asleep,’ said Sam.
    ‘It is though, isn’t it?’ she said sleepily.
    Sam didn’t reply. Of course it was nice to be inside. Nicer than freezing your liver in some graveyard. But how were they going to ever live inside – live inside permanently – unless they did something about it? Scrooge might be their only chance. It couldn’t be right for him to have all that money and them to go without.
    ‘Tell me about the house,’ said Lizzie sleepily.
    ‘I don’t remember,’ said Sam.
    ‘Yes, you do,’ said Lizzie. ‘Please.’
    ‘I’ve told you before,’ he snapped. ‘There ain’t no sense in talking about it. What’s the point?’
    Lizzie was silent for a moment, but Sam could tell the matter was not finished with. He heard her begin to sob quietly to herself.
    ‘For God’s sake, Liz,’ he said. ‘Don’t start that.’
    ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said forlornly. ‘You got those memories. You can remember, but I can’t. Not hardly at all. Don’t be mean, Sam.’
    Sam took a deep breath. Normally he would have ignored her or yelled at her, but for some reason he felt drawn to those memories when normally he avoided letting them in at all cost, because the very imagining of them cut him like a razor. The pain was all but unbearable.
    ‘The house was by a river,’ said Sam at length. ‘It had dark wood weatherboard walls and a thatched roof with a big old chimney stuck through it.’
    Lizzie smiled in the candlelight without opening her eyes.
    ‘It was small but it was big enough for us,’ he continued. ‘It was dark inside on account of the little windows, but we was outside mostly. We was always outside. The air was clean and didn’t taste of metal or coal dust when you breathed it. It felt like you was the first person ever to breathe it.
    ‘It had a garden